By Rachel Weber, Game Industry International

Frank Christopher Olivera, former vice president of corporate communications and public affairs at Gamestop Texas, has been sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for defrauding the company.

Olivera invented a company, Cloud Communications LLC, and used it to steal over $1.7 million from GameStop, using fake invoices and a fictitious employee.

“Olivera directed Gamestop to send the payments from Gamestop’s offices in Grapevine to Cloud Communications LLC in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Nevada and in Canada,” said a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“In addition to creating a fictitious company, Olivera also created a fictitious person, ‘Jennifer Miller,’ to serve as the point of contact at Cloud Communications. Upon receipt of payments from Gamestop, Olivera would deposit the checks into a bank account held by Cloud Communications and then would transfer the fraudulently obtained funds into his personal bank account.”

Olivera pleaded guilty to the charges last November and was sentenced by Judge Boyle last Thursday. As well as the jail time he’s been ordered to pay $134,651 in additional costs. He has already returned “most of” the $1.7 million to GameStop.