Former Textbook Salesman Allegedly Defrauded Hoboken-Based Publisher of $2.8M

A former employee of Hoboken-based publisher John Wiley & Sons is charged with perpetrating an elaborate scheme to divert and sell off more than $2.8 million of the company's educational textbooks over the Internet for personal gain, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced Thursday.

Christopher J. Brock, 44, of Yukon, Okla. was arrested in Tampa, Fla., Thursday on wire fraud charges that carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gain from the offense. 

The former textbook salesman, who worked for the global publishing giant most recently as a district sales supervisor based in Oklahoma, allegedly accessed Wiley's corporate computer system and designated more than 16,000 textbooks as free educational samples for college professors that he then diverted to himself, according to the criminal complaint.

The complaint alleges that Brock avoided detection by listing both real and fabricated professors as the textbook's recipients, but used his own home address and other addresses he controlled as shipping addresses for the textbook samples.

Upon receipt of the textbooks, Brock allegedly sold them online to resellers and received payments via PayPal, the complaint alleges. He used the more than $2.8 million that he allegedly bilked from his former employer to pay for high-end home furnishings and scuba diving gear, among other personal expenditures, Fishman said.

Brock made his initial appearance before a federal court judge in Tampa, Fla. Thursday afternoon.