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Former Systemax execs ordered to repay $35m to the biz

Reseller lost $27m to fraud, will make a return when Carl and Gilbert Fiorentino cough

Two brothers who held high office at Systemax before being found guilty of perpetrating a multi-million pound swindle have been ordered to repay $35m to the company.

Gilbert and Carl Fiorentino were sentenced in March 2015 to five and six years behind bars respectively for masterminding a $27m fraud at the reseller and one-time PC assembler over a eight years.

The restitution hearing was due to be heard in April last year but the order from a Miami federal beak was finally confirmed yesterday.

The duo joined Tiger Direct in 1987 and then Systemax in 1995 when it acquired the PC maker. They received kickbacks between 2003 and 2011 for steering $230m worth of orders to component suppliers, over-charging their firm for those goods.

Carl Fiorentino pocketed $9.5m along from Taiwanese firm RICI International for placing $157m of purchase orders for PC parts, cables and other equipment.

During the trial, assistant US attorney Jerrob Duffy claimed the brothers received bags of cash in car parks, with $240,000 of gold coins delivered on one occasion.

The filthy lucre was used by the brothers to pay for gated mansions homes in Florida, kitted out with luxurious furniture, as well as sports cars and a yacht.

Gilbert Fiorentino - who found god and was a changed man late in the trial - was said to have collected 300 million American Express membership reward points when he completed the company transactions on his personal credit card,

The pair were accused of using Tiger Direct as their “own personal candy store”, by Systemax legal counsel Eric Lerner.

We’d have asked both Carl and Gilbert for comment but…. you know, they were indisposed. ®

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