ST. LOUIS _ The former chief financial officer of a Chesterfield company who embezzled $2.8 million was sentenced in federal court here Monday to 41 months in prison and ordered to repay $2.2 million.
Saying that Ramon "Trey" Luina, 42, was driven by "absolute, pure greed," U.S. District Judge John Ross said it was "unimaginable" that Luina kept working at and stealing from his company while colleagues' pay and jobs were cut.
He stole an average of $280,000 per year from CMS Communications Inc. for a decade beginning in 2006, company records show.
In court Monday as about 30 current and former co-workers looked on, Christy Cosman, the company's vice president of operations and human resources, said Luina was present at regular meetings where company leaders tried to cut costs.
"Knowing layoffs were imminent, Trey continued to steal more each month," she said. As employees lost their jobs, Luina used the money for gym memberships, vehicles, vacations to Colorado, Florida and Italy, and a lake house and the toys to go with it, she said.
Ultimately 26 staffers, including Luina's father-in-law, lost their jobs.
"The fact is, he simply didn't care," Cosman said.
Luina apologized in court, saying that his "actions are not who I am."
His attorney, Joel Schwartz, said that Luina was a "tremendous" father and husband and a man of faith, who had vowed to "make amends." Luina has already repaid $535,000, Schwartz said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Collins asked for the top of the recommended sentencing guidelines of 33 to 41 months.
CMS President Glenn Cosman started the 97-employee company, which installs and maintains business telephone systems, in his garage in 1985.
He met Luina in 2003, when Luina was working for the company's outside auditing firm.
Luina was hired by Glenn Cosman's former partner in November of that year. He later became secretary and treasurer of the board of directors.
In 2005, Luina convinced that partner to stop performing full financial audits. The next year, Luina wrote a $11,783 company check to pay off a car loan.
In 2007, he embezzled $44,000, and his theft tripled the year after that, company records show.
Luina stole $601,329 in 2015. He was on track to top that the next year, but the Cosmans spotted an issue with the financial statements in mid-July of 2016, while Luina was on vacation and unable to "doctor" the financial records, they told the Post-Dispatch. The 401(k) match to employees was double what it should be, and the Cosmans discovered that Luina had improperly increased his own salary.
He admitted it, and they fired him.
Glenn Cosman said they "thought we had a significant problem, but we did not realize how significant a problem until we spent the next three months of our lives going through everything. Including looking at the front and back of 44,000 checks."
After "finding more and more and more," Christy Cosman said, "It made us feel sick."
Luina, they said, made checks falsely appear as if they were going to customers or wrote them to credit card companies or a fictitious company that he created, and faked wire transfers.
Cosman thinks Luina's ultimate plan was to devalue the company shares and take over so he could alter records and cover up his theft.
Company records show Luina took out $1.3 million in cash. He also spent $40,000 on vacations in Florida, Colorado and Italy, $82,000 for vehicles, $93,000 on other business ventures, $300,000 on a lake house he concealed from colleagues and bosses and nearly $1 million on credit cards.
Luina pleaded guilty to mail fraud in July.
He was also former chairman of the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce, treasurer of his church men's club and on the board of the Missouri USO.
