A local fuel company has pleaded guilty to falsifying business records.
According to the state comptroller and attorney general, Hudson Valley fuel provider Bottini Fuel kept customer overpayments and duplicate payments for heating oil. They say this happened from 2004 to 2016.
Bottini Fuel will now pay more than $3 million in criminal restitution and civil damages. They released a statement saying they accept full responsibility.
"We have fully reimbursed the state for the money in question so it can be provided to affected people, and we have taken steps to ensure this never happens again. This affected only a small fraction of the total transactions we handled from 2004-2016, and we had already returned nearly five times the amount at issue, to customers during that same time period," read the statement.
The attorney general’s office will contact all defrauded customers to distribute the restitution owed. If customers cannot be located, money relating to their accounts will be deposited with the New York State Comptroller’s Office of Unclaimed Funds, where they can be claimed in the future.