New Albany man sentenced after stealing more than $1.2 million from employer

NEW ALBANY, Ind. — A New Albany man was sentenced to federal prison after he admitted to stealing more than $1.2 million from his employer.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana, 38-year-old Caleb Keller was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, after he pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

As part of the sentence, Keller will be required to pay $1,210,120 in restitution to the business. That is the amount that the employer paid Keller for work they believed was completed by “fictitious employees of Keller’s business.”

The release said that Keller began working for his employer in 2011. Between April 2017 and June 2021, Keller created and submitted 101 false and fraudulent invoices to his employer through his side business, Polyglot Developers.

Keller created two fictitious employees, Matt Pearson and Grant Miller, for Polyglot, using the names to draft false invoices to his employer for work performed by Pearson and Miller. The release said that this included a $19.940 invoice in April 2019.

When his employer became suspicious, Keller pretended to be Pearson on a Zoom call using a video filter. The release said that it became obvious during the meeting that Pearson was not real and it was actually Keller.

“Following the meeting, Keller was fired and his employer’s relationship with Polyglot was terminated,” the release said.

In April 2022, Keller told law enforcement that both Pearson and Miller were actual employees. A few months later, Keller admitted that the employees were fake and he impersonated Pearson on the call.

Over the course of multiple years, Keller’s employer paid Keller around $1,210,120 for work done by the fictitious employees. Keller used the money to pay for personal expenses.

“Trusted employees can cause tremendous harm to a business when they exploit their positions to steal and cover it up,” Zachary A. Myers, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Indiana, said in the release. “Protecting Hoosiers and Hoosier businesses from fraud is a top priority for federal law enforcement. Thanks to the efforts of the FBI, IRS-CI, and our federal prosecutor, this criminal has been accountable for his actions. The federal prison sentence imposed here should be a warning to would-be fraudsters that economic crimes can lead to paying a very serious price.”

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