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Three former employees Henri Bendel’s flagship accessories store on 5th Avenue were charged last week with embezzling about $170,000 from the company. Among them, Sanjay Damodar of Garfield, New Jersey, a former accountant with the store, allegedly approved payments to a fake company set up by Kelly Rogel and Brandon Devto.
Rogel, 32, of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, a former account manager who now works as the director of finance at Thomas Pink, and her former colleague Brandon Detvo, 39, a former manager of financial planning, allegedly hatched the scheme against the retailer, the New York Post reported.
Devto and Rogel were reportedly unhappy, bitter and angry towards Henri Bendel, Rogel told investigators on Jan. 9, according to the Post report. “We all agreed to do it and we were just seeing the money,” she said.
The two allegedly diverted more than $168,000 from Henri Bendel’s bank account into a bogus company they created called AIM Financial from April 2013 to February 2014 with the help of Damodar, who approved payments to the fake company and got $20,000 as a kickback.
“The checks were made out to AIM Financial and Brandon was the mastermind,” Rogel, told authorities. “We all worked together to cut the checks.”
Damodar, who now works for high-end jewelry store David Yurmin, denied he knew anything about the embezzled funds when he spoke to authorities Jan 5. “I knew checks were being cut to AIM Financial but I didn’t know it was stolen money,” the Post quoted Damodar as saying. He claimed Detvo gave him two checks totaling $13,000 to buy David Yurmin jewelry using his employee discount, court papers say. Damodar, however, did not have an explanation for the remaining $7,000 he received from Detvo, the Post report said.
Damodar’s lawyer, Todd A. Spodek told NJ Advance Media a statement asserting his client was following orders and wasn’t aware money was stolen. “The evidence will show that Mr. Detvo and Ms. Rogel were my client’s direct supervisors, and every action he took was at their behest. There is no evidence that my client had knowledge that the funds were illegally obtained,” Spodek wrote in an email.
The trio surrendered to the DA’s Office Feb. 19 and pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on grand larceny and other raps.
