DAYTON - Philip C. Garber, former managing pharmacist at the Kettering Medical Center, has been sentenced in United States District Court to 41 months imprisonment for embezzling funds from an organization receiving federal monies, money laundering and income tax evasion. Garber was also ordered to liquidate the equity in his home and seven cars and pay the Internal Revenue Service back taxes of $386,665.69 plus penalties, interest and the cost of prosecuting him for income tax evasion.

Gregory G. Lockhart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Cromwell A. Handy, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office; and Kevin Brock, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cincinnati Field Office, announced the sentence handed down late yesterday by United States Chief District Judge Walter Herbert Rice.

Garber, age 45, of Cincinnati pled guilty to the charges in March, 2001.

Garber was employed by the Kettering Medical Center from 1987 through 1998. Part of that time he managed the prescription drug pharmacy business known as Kettering Affiliated Health Services. Beginning in 1994 and continuing through April 1998, Garber embezzled $1,212,404.41 in Kettering Medical Center funds by diverting 431 insurance checks that were sent to the three Kettering Medical Center pharmacies.

"Garber was in a position of trust with the victim, Kettering Medical Center. He grossly abused that trust in the name of greed," Lockhart said.

Garber admitted to money laundering charges by engaging in 45 monetary transactions involving over $10,000 each and totaling approximately $725,484.31. He admitted that these funds were used for his personal benefit and for the purchase of various luxury items, including a houseboat, three Ferrari automobiles, a grand piano, other high value items and improvements to real property. In particular, in May 1996, Garber sent $32,000 of the funds to a car dealership in Miami, Florida as a down payment on a 1988 Ferrari Testarosa Coupe with a total purchase price of $92,000.

Garber also admitted that during the years 1994 through 1997 he understated his income by $1,065,805.14. In 1996, for example, Garber, then a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, filed a joint tax return claiming taxable income of $131,001.22 and a tax liability of $11,776. Because of the misappropriated funds, his true joint income that year was $560,001.63, with a tax due of $179,243.96.

Lockhart commended the investigative work of the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents involved in this matter, and District Criminal Chief J. Richard Chema who prosecuted the case.