Nguyen Le was looking at a long and promising career in Hennepin County's Information Technology department, promoted to manager a few years after being hired.
His new duties included ordering computer equipment, including switches that connect devices to computers. Each switch could cost the county up to $15,000.
For nearly a decade after his promotion, Le stole the switches and sold them to a company in Oklahoma, according to charges recently filed against him. He made $4 million and cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
He also duped the county in another way, fixing the timecard of his girlfriend Samantha Marks, the charges say. He didn't follow personnel procedures when he hired her, and as her supervisor, he approved hundreds of hours when she rarely showed up in the office. The day she gave birth to their child, he marked her timecard as being at work.
The couple, who live together in Columbus, made their first court appearances last week. Both were charged with theft by swindle and aren't in custody. They were fired by the county in February 2020.
The county said as soon as it became aware of possible criminal behavior, it referred the case to law enforcement. The allegations detailed in the criminal complaint are simply outrageous and an absolute betrayal, said county spokeswoman Carolyn Marinan. If the defendants are found guilty, the county will ask for restitution, she said.
In addition to referring the matter for criminal investigation, the IT department immediately took action to review its policies and procedures to ensure additional controls were put in place to reduce risk, she said. Those actions included enhancing security and organization of network equipment in storage, conducting a third-party audit and inventory of network equipment, improving equipment lifecycle management from procurement to disposal including separation of duties, and accounting practices and tightening controls around physical access, she said.
Marinan added the county believes it now has appropriate controls in place to mitigate the risk of this type of theft. The county continually reviews controls and protocols across the entire organization through enterprise risk management and auditing functions, she said.