Former suburban COO learns sentence after embezzling more than $1.85M in company funds

WILLOWBROOK, Ill. - A former suburban Chief Operating Officer of a company that sold COVID-19 testing kits was sentenced this week to six years and five months in federal prison for embezzling more than $1.85 million in company funds. 

Dennis Haggerty, 48, of Burr Ridge, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a wire fraud charge.

Haggerty, the former Chief Operating Officer of a suburban company that sold COVID-19 testing kits, allegedly made fraudulent payments from the Willowbrook-based company's bank account, claiming they were for services and goods provided by himself or the company's main vendor.

Prosecutors revealed that, in reality, these services and goods were never provided.

The funds sent to the testing-kit supplier were then wired to a bank account under Haggerty's control, which he used for his personal gain.

Haggerty also issued checks drawn from the company's bank account to himself, knowing that he would spend the money for his personal benefit. He concealed the fraud by making false and misleading statements on the checks and to the company's president. 

Moreover, Haggerty carried out this scheme while on pre-trial and pre-sentencing release for a previous fraud case.

In all, Haggerty embezzled and fraudulently misappropriated more than $1.85 million from the company in 2021 and 2022.

Prosecutors said Haggerty must serve the sentence after completing his federal sentence for an earlier fraud scheme.

In the prior case, Haggerty pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for swindling hospitals that had paid him millions of dollars for protective equipment in the early weeks of the COVID pandemic in 2020.

He was sentenced in December 2022 to nearly five years in federal prison.