Barrett Business Services Inc.’s former CFO, James Miller, was sentenced to 15 days in federal prison for falsely certifying the company’s 2013 annual report, the US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington announced Friday.  

Vancouver, Washington-headquartered Barrett provides staffing and PEO services. It terminated Miller on March 3, 2016, after he informed the company’s audit and compliance committee that he made unsupported journal entries in the company’s financial records during each calendar quarter of 2013. 

The sentencing comes after Miller, 61, pleaded guilty on Nov. 4, 2022, following years of shareholder litigation and a US Security and Exchange Commission fraud investigation.   

At the hearing, Chief US District Judge David G. Estudillo noted Miller deliberately made the entries.  

Miller served as Barrett Business Services’ CFO between 2008 and 2016. During 2012 and 2013, Miller made a series of accounting entries that understated the increase in workers’ compensation expenses and instead attributed $12 million of these costs to payroll taxes and other expenditures. Miller’s accounting entries violated Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and concealed potentially important trend from analysts evaluating the company, according to the US Attorney's Office.  

Miller also directed a staff accountant to initial the entry after making each false entry, creating the appearance that the staff accountant was responsible for the misleading entries when in reality, Miller had made them himself.  

In addition, while preparing the false entries, Miller exercised his options to sell tens of thousands of the company’s shares and eventually succeeded in selling $2.4 million worth of shares in just two days in 2013. 

“As a former auditor and CPA, Miller understood the importance of accurately disclosing financial information,” said Acting US Attorney Tessa Gorman. 

 “Nevertheless, he made fraudulent entries 29 times, totaling over $12 million. He ‘cooked the books’ and then certified the financial reports as accurate — keeping shareholders and company executives in the dark about the fraudulent entries for three years.”  

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.