Steven J. Gutowski, whose last known address was Winona Lake, was sentenced to four years at the Indiana Department of Corrections this morning in Kosciusko Superior Court on three class C felony counts of forgery and three class D felony counts of theft.
Gutowski was also ordered to pay restitution to The Papers Inc., Milford, totaling $68,830.40.
Based on the plea agreement, the initial executed sentence could not exceed four years of prison time.
Without the plea agreement, each of the D felonies carry a jail sentence ranging from 6 months to 3 years and each of the C felonies carry a 2 years to 8 years potential.
The Case
A former sales representative for The Municipal, a publication of The Papers Inc., Gutowski submitted advertising for the publication with false documentation and received a commission on those ads.
The charges stem from Nov. 28, 2011; May 4, 2012; and May 15, 2012, when he filled out insertion order forms in the amount of $950 allegedly from Indiana Drug Card; $1,050 from Kenny Vice Ford; and $325 from Air Fee Insoles, none of which authorized the insertion orders. From those falsified documents, Gutowski received $520.50 in sales commission from those ads.
Authorities were notified on July 27, 2012, that Gutowski had an unusual amount of past due accounts where customers ads were published, but they had failed to pay for the ads. After inquiring into the past due accounts with Gutowski on July 26, he resigned from the company.
Company officials found Gutowski had opened 37 accounts that were 60 days late in payment and all of the accounts were fraudulent. The sales invoices were all drafted by him and the customers never agreed to placing the ads. The ads were all run by the company and the total loss revenue to The Papers Inc. was $42,073. The initial court documents state Gutowski’s motive for creating the fraudulent ads was to receive the commission on the sales. He received $6,300 in commission for “sales.”
The plea agreement, which the court accepted, does not allow the state to file any additional felony charges on the remaining 34 fraudulent accounts.
For a more in-depth account of today’s sentencing, see today’s issue of The Mail-Journal.