Ex-Microsoft accountant jailed for $1.1m Redmond theft

A former Microsoft accountant has been sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to repay over a million dollars after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering.

Randal Ray Seal stole the money from Microsoft after working in the company’s accounting department for nearly a decade. He said the thefts were initially carried out to highlight a flaw in the company’s accounting systems, but his bosses ignored the problem when he informed them, the Seattle P-I reports.

However, after Seal was laid off in 2004, he took the money, and it was only in 2009 that the authorities caught up with him. In addition to two years in prison, Seal will have to pay back around $1.1m to Redmond's coffers. “I made the poor decision of revealing the defects by exploiting the flaws in the department’s system,” Seal told the court.