By Shawn Hogendorf, Correspondent 

A 37-year-old Prior Lake man was charged in U.S. District Court Monday with one count of conspiracy and one count of money laundering for his role in a scheme that allegedly overcharged Best Buy Inc. $31 million over four years.

Robert Paul Bossany, a former Best Buy vendor-relations manager, allegedly received cash, checks and gift cards from a computer parts supply company he was hired by Best Buy to oversee, according to court records filed Monday. The computer parts supply company was unnamed in court documents.

According to the court documents, Bossany was an employee at Best Buy headquarters in Richfield from 2003 to 2008 and was responsible for managing the purchase of computer parts from outside vendors.

From 2003 to 2007, Bossany allegedly oversaw Best Buy’s relationship with the unnamed vendor, which sold computer parts to Best Buy through an online reverse auction administered by a second company that was called “Company B” in the court documents.

Neither the unnamed computer parts company nor the auction company has been charged in federal court, but 32 court documents remain sealed, and further charges are possible.

According to the charges, Best Buy would identify the computer parts it needed and then “Company B” would compile and post a list of those parts on a computer server accessible by approved computer parts supply vendors.

The vendors would then review the list and place bids on the parts the companies were interested in supplying to Best Buy. The vendor bids would state whether the part was available and then quote a price for the vendor to supply the parts to Best Buy. The vendor that had the parts in stock and ready to ship, and quoted Best Buy the lowest price, would win the order.

When Best Buy solicited bids for computer parts, the unnamed computer parts company allegedly submitted fraudulently low bids with no intention of providing the parts at the bid price. The parts company often didn’t have the parts available to ship, according to court documents.

After “Company B” issued a purchase order to the computer parts company, that computer parts company would fraudulently invoice Best Buy through “Company B” at a price significantly higher than the bid price.

According to the charges, the computer parts company invoiced more than $60 million in parts through “Company B,” defrauding Best Buy of at least $31 million.

The charges allege that the computer parts company repeatedly gave Bossany cash and property to corruptly influence his loyalty and performance of duties for Best Buy.

The computer parts company allegedly sent Federal Express and UPS packages containing magazines, CDs or DVDs stuffed with cash, checks or gift cards to Bossany’s home on a bi-weekly, and at times, a weekly basis from 2003 through mid-2007, according to court documents.

Court documents do not state how much money Bossany allegedly received.

The computer parts company sent the envelopes to Bossany’s home address, rather than to Best Buy, to “avoid arousing the suspicions of [Bossany’s] co-workers,” according to court documents.

During the time the computer parts company was sending Bossany cash, checks and gift cards, Bossany allegedly kept the bribes from his supervisors when he was questioned about the high prices the computer parts company was charging.

The charges also allege that Bossany repeatedly provided confidential information to the computer parts company that was used to further the scheme to defraud Best Buy.

Bossany’s next court appearance is Jan. 22.

The case was investigated by the IRS criminal investigation division, the U.S. Postal Inspection service and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

 Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at (952) 345-6374 or shogendorf@swpub.com.