The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a former employee of Utz Quality Foods Inc. of Hanover and a former Utz vendor have been charged with a false invoice kickback scheme that defrauded Utz out of approximately $1.4 million.

Kevin Myers, 38, a former resident of Abbottstown, and the former director of purchasing for Utz, and Jonathan Haas, 45, of Easton, the former owner of Haas Packaging and Design Inc. of Bethlehem, were each charged today in a Criminal Information filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg.

The government also filed plea agreements with the defendants which are subject to the approval of the court.

According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, Haas Packaging & Design was a vendor that supplied Utz with shelving and packaging products between January 2010 and August 2014.

According to records, Haas submitted approximately 83 false invoices and approximately 43 bogus purchase orders prepared by Myers for products Utz never received.

After Myers approved Haas' false invoices for payment, Haas would kickback a portion of the proceeds to Myers, according to officials.

Haas allegedly received approximately $1,474,765 from Utz as a result of the false invoices and kicked back approximately $651,000 of that amount to Myers.

The defendants also allegedly attempted to conceal kickbacks to Myers as payments for consulting services.

Some of the kickbacks were in the form of checks payable to "Myers Packaging Consulting," a fictional business entity created by Myers.

The specific wire fraud charge relates to an alleged interstate wire transmission of a $26,000 check into a Myers Packaging Consulting bank account in January 2014. The government is also seeking forfeiture of approximately $1.4 million as proceeds of the scheme.

The case was investigated by the Harrisburg Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Utz Quality Foods, Inc. cooperated with the investigation.

The maximum penalty under federal law is 20 years of imprisonment, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a $250,000 fine.