SHARON, Pa. (WKBN) – A man who once worked for a Sharon steel manufacturer and now lives in Florida is accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Mercer County business.
According to the criminal complaint, Cody Rainey worked as a production manager at SSAB Wear Solutions from January 2022 until his resignation in July 2023.
During that time, investigators said, the defendants embezzled more than $108,000 from the company through unrecorded sales of scrap metal, personal purchases on Amazon using a company credit card, and sales of other company products, with the proceeds deposited into the defendants' personal bank accounts.
SSAB discovered the theft during an audit in August 2023. Investigators said Rainey was informed an audit would be conducted and resigned a month beforehand.
Rainey used the money on plane tickets, at bars and restaurants, withdrew money from ATMs, made purchases at a bike shop and paid off credit cards, according to an affidavit from criminal finance investigators with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office. The affidavit also said Rainey traveled roughly monthly to locations including Colorado, South Carolina, Florida and Mexico.
Rainey faces several charges, including theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, access device fraud and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June.
SSAB is a steel specialist company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and is the largest steel flat supplier in North America. The headquarters of its US subsidiary is in Alabama. The company has a small manufacturing center in Sharon.
