In June, former RTI controller Thomas Turey ( 64 ) of Norwalk Connecticut pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud relating to his embezzlement of approximately $3,462,435 and was sentenced by United States District Judge Janet Hall in New Haven to 54 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.

An FBI investigation revealed that between August 2005 and January 2013, Turey wrote “cheques to himself or to a fictitious entity for his personal benefit and deposit[ed] those funds into bank accounts he controlled”. He concealed the scheme by making “numerous false entries in the company’s books and records”.

As RTI’s controller, Turey was responsible for aggregating the company’s monthly revenue and expense results, managing accounts receivable, performing financial analysis and reporting, and overseeing the company’s bookkeeper.

Turey also was responsible for the company’s general ledger and was in charge of conducting the company’s bank reconciliations. He worked for RTI for 17 years.

RTI was founded in 1979 by Mel Rothstein and Richard Tauber. It placed 48th on last year’s Honomichl Top 50 ranking of US research companies with $16.6m in annual revenue.