Washington, D.C. – William H. Ashley, a former employee in the Washington, D.C., branch of the men’s clothing store, J. Press, was sentenced today to 21 months of incarceration for his six-year wire fraud scheme to embezzle funds from J. Press, announced U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Jeffrey Irvine, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service Washington Field Office, and Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier.

Ashley, 61, of Clinton, Maryland, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge James Robertson to one felony count of wire fraud on May 15, 2008. Today, he was sentenced to 21 months of incarceration and two years of supervised release, and was ordered to provide $200,479.60 in restitution to J. Press.

Ashley was a sale associate at J. Press who used his knowledge of the store’s credit card processing systems to credit his Visa debit card fraudulently with J. Press funds; he attempted to disguise those credits by placing a smaller amount of charges on his American Express card. For example, in February 2006, Ashley credited his Visa debit card $11,417.41 and attempted to hide his theft by placing $6,173.35 in charges on his American Express card. In that month alone, Ashley thus embezzled $5,244.06 from J. Press. Ashley used this method to embezzle more than $200,000 from his employer.

During Ashley’s six-year fraud scheme, he fraudulently credited his Visa card 777 times. Ashley defrauded J. Press on roughly 40 percent of the days for which he showed up to work during the six years of the scheme.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor, Special Agent in Charge Irvine, and Chief Lanier commended the hard work, diligence, and professionalism of U.S. Secret Service Special Agents Adam Kirkwood and Patrick Miller and Metropolitan Police Department Detective Richard N. Espinosa of the Financial Crimes & Fraud Unit. U.S. Attorney Taylor also praised Paralegal Specialist Diane Hayes, Legal Assistant April Peeler, Summer Legal Intern George Ingham, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy G. Lynch, who prosecuted the case.