James Faro, the former director of sales for National Fish and Seafood and the former chief financial officer of Sea Star Seafood Corporation, was sentenced to two years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay more than USD 1.1 million (EUR 937,000) in restitution for conspiring to commit bank fraud, according to the Worchester Business Journal.
Faro, 61, along with John Crowley, 62, who was chief financial officer of the now-defunct, Worchester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Sea Star, pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in March 2018. Crowley, 62, of Florida, is scheduled to be sentenced by the end of September.
Between November 2010 and August 2012, Faro and Crowley overstated the value of Sea Star’s outstanding accounts receivable that it reported to a bank that agreed to loan the frozen seafoods company USD 6 million (EUR 4.8 million), according to the criminal complaint.
In August 2012, the company informed the bank that it discovered a discrepancy of more USD 3 million (EUR 2.4 million) between its reported and actual assets. The company declared bankruptcy and closed soon after.
Faro left National Fish in the first quarter of 2018.
Todd Provost, current president of National Fish, told SeafoodSource in March that Faro did not “have any role relating to the finances of National Fish, and the case involving Sea Star has no connection to National Fish whatsoever,” Provost said.
Photo courtesy of Worcester Business Journal
