Car Dealership Manager Sentenced After Embezzling $1.6M From Luxury Showrooms

On February 26, 2026, Jooyeong Lee — a former general manager at three New Jersey luxury automotive dealerships operated by Murgado Automotive Group, one of the largest dealership networks in the country — was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden in Newark federal court to filing a false federal income tax return. IRS-Criminal Investigation's Newark Field Office, under Special Agent in Charge Jenifer Piovesan, identified the scheme after financial records revealed a $1.6 million gap between Lee's reported compensation and the deposits flowing into his accounts across a seven-year window spanning approximately 2015 through 2021. Working across three separate Murgado-owned stores, Lee exploited his position at the operational center of each dealership's revenue flow — overseeing sales, finance, service, and bank deposits — to skim funds that were never declared as income on his federal tax returns, generating a calculated tax loss of $494,082 to the United States. Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey S. Smith prosecuted the case. Judge Hayden imposed full restitution of $494,082 in addition to the prison term. Among the victims was Murgado Automotive Group itself, a family-built enterprise whose controllers never received a complete picture of the conduct because Lee's rotation across three stores divided the documentary trail between separate sets of books. Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.