Aurora man gets 4½ years for $290,000 theft from employer

An Aurora man was sentenced Thursday to 4½ years in prison for stealing more than $290,000 from an Oak Brook firm where he worked as an accountant.

Shaun Horan, 32, of the 1600 block of Blackwell Lane, had pleaded guilty in June to felony theft over $100,000.

Horan admitted taking $291,237 from his former employer, Resource One in Oak Brook, between 2007 and 2011. Authorities said he wrote 96 unauthorized checks to himself and altered bank records to cover his tracks.

The scheme was revealed last year when the company comptroller noticed a discrepancy and launched an internal audit, according to DuPage County prosecutors.

“For four years, Shaun Horan treated Resource One’s bank accounts as his own personal piggy bank,” State’s Attorney Bob Berlin said.

Berlin added that Horan’s “greed caused great hardship to the company and to his fellow co-workers.”

Horan, who has been ordered to pay full restitution, was sentenced by Judge Robert Kleeman. By law, he must serve 27 months before he would be eligible for parole.

Horan has already spent more than a year in jail and will receive credit for that time toward his sentence.