Health Insurance CFO Gets 1 Year for Embezzling $632,000

SEATTLE (AP) — The former chief financial officer of a Washington state health insurance company has been sentenced to a year in prison for embezzling $632,000. Federal prosecutors said Zachary Augustus Smulski took the money from Federal Way-based Soundpath Health in an effort to finance his own start-up companies — but paid it back as soon as he got caught.

U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik sentenced him to a year in prison Friday. Smulski was hired as Soundpath's CFO in 2008. In 2011, he started diverting money to himself and used fake accounting documents to conceal it. The company's comptroller starting asking questions in the midst of a state audit in 2012, and Smulski suddenly returned the money.

Prosecutors were seeking a 2½-year sentence, saying Smulski did not take full responsibility for what he did and that he concealed that he had ever worked at Soundpath when he subsequently took a job at Glenns Ferry Health Center in Glenns Ferry, Idaho.