Former Gamestop vice president sentenced to 51 months in federal prison

Written by Phil Cerroni

Frank Christopher Olivera, 46, of Grapevine, the former vice president of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Gamestop Texas LLP, was sentenced March 7 by U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle to 51 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in November 2012 to one count of mail fraud.

Olivera stole more than $1.7 million, most of which he has repaid to the victim, Gamestop Texas LLP. Judge Boyle ordered that Olivera pay an additional $57,376, which constitutes the amount unpaid on the loss and $77,275 additional restitution to Gamestop.

According to documents filed in the case, beginning in July 2009 and continuing to April 2011, Olivera defrauded Gamestop by submitting false and fraudulent invoices for vendor services from a fictitious company, “Cloud Communications LLC,” which he owned and controlled. Olivera directed Gamestop to send the payments from Gamestop’s offices in Grapevine to Cloud Communications LLC in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, NV and in Canada. In addition to creating a fictitious company, Olivera also created a fictitious person, “Jennifer Miller,” to serve as the point of contact at Cloud Communications. Upon receipt of payments from Gamestop, Olivera would deposit the checks into a bank account held by Cloud Communications and then would transfer the fraudulently obtained funds into his personal bank account.

The overall scheme to defraud involved $1,965,900 in fraudulent invoices.

The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Errin Martin.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation