Former Doylestown Company Execs Charged In $2.1M Fraud Scheme

HARRISBURG, PA — The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office announced criminal charges Tuesday against three former company executives of Boucher & James, a civil engineering firm headquartered in Doylestown, in connection with a scheme to overbill municipalities for work that never happened.

Prosecutors allege that Ross Boucher, the former owner of the firm who also served on the board, conspired with former managing directors Mark Eisold and David Jones to bilk municipalities out of more than $2 million between 2009 and 2018.

The firm provides services in land planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, surveying and building code compliance to more than 30 public entities in eastern Pennsylvania, including Lower Makefield Township and the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority, which were named as victims in the case.

“These company executives took advantage of their municipal clients’ trust by routinely overbilling for work that never happened,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a news release Tuesday. “Let’s be clear about what this means: when you bill for time that you didn’t work, you are stealing — and these former Boucher & James executives will be held accountable for their crimes.”

The scheme was discovered by another managing director in 2018, who found that Eisold had handwritten additional hours into the draft invoices of his client, thereby adding employee work time billed to the client, the AG's office said. One employee was recorded as having worked 34 hours in a single day. After discovering the discrepancy, the director reviewed Eisold's other billing records and saw the same behavior, prosecutors said.

The attorney general's office opened an investigation after receiving a referral from the Northampton County District Attorney's Office, and a subsequent review by forensic accounts showed that the company's employees stole about $2.1 million from clients, authorities said. When the company became award of the fraud, the executives resigned from their positions, the board of directors was reconstituted and company managers cooperated fully with the investigation, the AG's Office said. Under the agreement, the company repaid more than $851,000 in overbilled funds to clients dating back to Jan. 1, 2015. In light of these facts, the company will not be charged, authorities said.

Ross Boucher, Mark Eisold, and David Jones have all been charged with theft by deception, theft by receiving stolen property, deceptive business practices, corrupt organizations and conspiracy. They have admitted no wrongdoing, officials said.