Ex-exec imprisoned for $30M theft

A former executive at a nearly 140-year-old shoe manufacturer has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for embezzling $30 million from the company and spending it on luxury items and travel for himself and another person, federal prosecutors in Boston said.

Richard Hajjar, 64, the former chief financial officer of Alden Shoe Co., was also sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay more than $60 million in restitution and penalties.

Hajjar, of Duxbury, embezzled the money from 2011 until he was fired in 2019, by writing checks to himself from company bank accounts and transferring funds from company accounts to his personal accounts and to another person, prosecutors said.

Hajjar pleaded guilty in May to wire fraud, unlawful monetary transactions and filing a false tax return.