An employee in the New York office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP has been indicted for stealing more than $376,000 worth of copy machine toner over approximately two years. The employee accomplished this by ordering excess toner from two vendors and effectively setting up a side business through which he sold the toner.
“It may surprise many New Yorkers to learn that there is a black market for office supplies,” said District Attorney Vance. “This defendant didn’t just take a box of Post-it Notes out of the office supply closet – he is charged with making an illegal business out stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of worth copy machine toner.”
While the volume of the toner theft in this recent matter is surprising, it is not the largest. In 2011, a former employee at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center was convicted of stealing over $1.5 million of toner cartridges. Companies should not dismiss theft of office supplies as being an immaterial concern.
