St. Louis, MO - Robert D. Rice, former Boeing Director of Supply Chain Management, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison today for using Boeing expense cards to make personal purchases that included a $52,000 BMW automobile, United States Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway announced today. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $299,382.69, which he paid this morning at sentencing.

ROBERT D. RICE, 48, was the Director of Supply Chain Management at Boeing Corporation from 1997 until his termination in March 2005. Rice had approval authority for the employee charge cards called purchase cards (P-Cards), that are to be used for items needed for company operations that are purchased outside of the normal supply chain. Rice and an employee, Lisa J. Hernandez, made an agreement to use the employee’s P-Card to purchase items for themselves. After the purchases were made, Hernandez would submit the expenses to Rice for his approval, which were then submitted for payment by Boeing. In the course of this scheme, they purchased an automobile, artwork, jewelry, home improvement items and vacations totaling more than $299,382. In order to further facilitate this scheme, Rice created a shell company in Nevada called Leantraining. Rice would approve P-Card purchases by Boeing to Leantraining for “training materials.” After payment was made by Boeing, Rice withdrew more than $85,000 cash.

Last November, Rice, of the 16100 block of Walden Pond Lane, Chesterfield, pled guilty to one felony count of wire fraud and appeared this morning for sentencing before Senior United States District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh. Co-defendant, Lisa Hernandez, 35, formerly of Florine Court, St. Charles, Missouri, also pled guilty and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on February 10, 2006.

Boeing cooperated fully in the investigation and played an integral role in the prosecution.

Hanaway commended the work performed on the case by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Postal Inspection Service, and Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Schelp, who handled the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.