A doctor was sentenced today to 24 months in prison for defrauding his prior employer’s medical practice by stealing and forging the medical practice’s checks to pay personal expenses. Walter Sytnik, 35, of Voorhees, New Jersey, previously pleaded guilty in federal court to an information charging him with one count of mail fraud. According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: Before attending medical school, Sytnik worked for a medical practice in southern New Jersey as a bookkeeper. While employed by the practice, Sytnik stole some of its checks and, from May 2013 through April 2018, used them to steal more than $500,000 from the practice. He opened and maintained credit card accounts at the same banks as used by the doctor at the medical practice, and forged the doctor’s signature on the stolen checks, which he sent through the U.S. Mail to pay his own credit card bills. When Sytnik ran out of checks, he reordered new ones so that he could continue the fraud. In addition to the prison term, Judge Rodriguez sentenced Sytnik to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $415,995.
