Gun shop worker turned off store cameras and secretly stole millions from safe, feds say
A longtime employee of a Connecticut gun shop often arrived at work early, when no one else was there, to switch off the store’s security cameras that monitored a safe, according to federal prosecutors.
Evan Bobzin, who was the head of information technology at Hoffman’s Gun Center in Newington, secretly went inside the safe — where thousands of dollars in cash was kept in resealable pouches, prosecutors said.
Bobzin repeatedly took the money out of the pouches on multiple occasions and deposited it in his bank accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut. Afterward, he would turn the store’s cameras back on, prosecutors said
He “methodically” stole $2,062,580 over a span of eight years and used the money for personal expenses, including paying off credit card bills, prosecutors wrote in sentencing documents.
Now Bobzin, a 39-year-old Chester resident, has been sentenced to two years in prison in connection with his “embezzlement scheme,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut said in a Nov. 27 news release.
More than $1.9 million in stolen cash was deposited by Bobzin and his former spouse into his bank accounts between 2016 and 2023, according to prosecutors.
Bobzin pleaded guilty to interstate transmission of stolen money and tax evasion Aug. 29, according to prosecutors.
His defense attorneys and Hoffman’s Gun Center didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ requests for comment Nov. 29.
One of his attorneys, Thomas J. Murphy, wrote in a filing submitted on Bobzin’s behalf that he “deeply regrets his crimes.”
“Regrettably, Evan, struggling to make ends meet and doubting his ability to provide for his family the hard way, began to steal cash in $100 bills from the company’s safe,” he wrote.
‘I defended Evan, we were friends’
Bobzin began working at Hoffman’s Gun Center, located about a 10-mile drive southwest from Hartford, in 2013 and later became the head of information technology in 2016, prosecutors said.
In December 2023, IRS agents visited Scott Hoffman, the owner of Hoffman’s Gun Center, and “laid out their case” against Bobzin, according to a victim impact written by him.
“I defended Evan, we were friends, our families spent time together, we went over each other’s houses for holidays & dinners,” Hoffman said in recalling the IRS visit.
“In the gun store, I thought of him as one of my most trusted employees, and to find out that the whole time Evan was stealing & lying to me, it just seemed impossible for me to believe,” Hoffman wrote.
Hoffman said that he now knows the “whole truth” and is “personally & emotionally devastated.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, it became aware that Bobzin was “conducting cash transactions in amounts below $10,000 in a manner indicative of structuring to avoid having his bank file currency transaction reports.”
After the office alerted Bobzin of this in October 2022, prosecutors said he opened new accounts at different banks and continued “making structured cash deposits into those accounts.”
Bobzin never reported the stolen cash as income on his tax returns between 2016 through 2022, according to prosecutors.
He caused the IRS to lose $436,178, prosecutors said.
In sentencing Bobzin, a federal judge ordered him to pay the full amount he’s accused of stealing in restitution.
Bobzin also must pay the IRS “$436,178 in taxes, as well as penalties and interest,” according to prosecutors.
Before the judge handed Bobzin his sentence, Murphy wrote in the sentencing memo that Bobzin “is deeply sorry for the harm that he has caused, both to Scott Hoffman and to his own children.”
Bobzin was released on a $50,000 bond and must report to prison Jan. 6, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In Hoffman’s victim impact statement, he wrote that “employees, customers, suppliers, bankers” that “once thought of me as a smart businessman now think of me differently.”
“The toll” Bobzin’s alleged theft “has taken on me personally & (professionally) & financially is very substantial,” he said.
“My reputation that I worked so hard to achieve, is now (tarnished) forever. Even if I recouped all the funds that were stolen from me, I will never be truly 100% whole again,” Hoffman wrote.
This story was originally published November 29, 2024 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Gun shop worker turned off store cameras and secretly stole millions from safe, feds say."
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