Former WA employee embezzles nearly $900K from state to fuel gambling addiction

A former Washington state employee was sentenced to 18 months in prison today for his wire fraud scheme, stealing nearly $900,000 from his former employer, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced.

Matthew Randall Ping, a 48-year-old Olympia man, pleaded guilty in June 2025 to wire fraud and false tax returns.

“This theft was not just the largest insider embezzlement from Washington State in the last 15 years; it also undermines trust in our state’s financial safeguards,” U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller said. “Mr. Ping not only cheated state taxpayers, he cheated on his federal taxes as well by failing to pay the income taxes he owed on ill-gotten gain.”

Olympia man sentenced for embezzling $900K from WA state

Ping started working for the Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) in 2009. By 2017, Ping had been promoted to a management analyst position, which acted as the department’s credit card custodian.

Between 2019 and 2023, Ping conducted an elaborate scheme to abuse his credit card access and embezzle at least $878,115 from the agency.

Ping opened accounts with payment processors and titled the accounts with names that indicated they were associated with legitimate OAH business vendors. Between 2019 and 2021, Ping charged more than $330,000 to OAH credit cards under the fake vendors’ names.

In 2021, Ping created an account with a different payment processor and stole approximately $530,000 in additional funds from OAH. The credit cards were also used to purchase $17,359 worth of personal items from Walmart and Verizon.

Ping bypassed state procedures designed to detect credit card fraud. OAH required Ping’s co-workers to review and approve his credit card transactions; however, Ping would provide false or incomplete information during the review process.

Following the review, Ping would add the fraudulent charges and approve the payments himself. Ping also manipulated accounting data to make it difficult to determine the protocols he violated by uploading, reviewing, and approving his own transactions.

Ping executed 210 fraudulent transactions, which represented a total loss for the state of $860,756. The purchases from Verizon and Walmart brought the total state losses to $878,115.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dane Westermeyer mentioned that a majority of the money Ping stole in his scheme was gambled away at casinos.

“He used this stolen taxpayer money to fuel his gambling habit, fund at least six trips to Las Vegas, pay off a luxury vehicle loan, and otherwise support his lifestyle,” Westermeyer wrote in his sentencing memo. “Perhaps not surprisingly, he failed to report any of the income from his theft on his federal tax returns, which resulted in a tax loss of nearly $250,000.”

Ping claimed he tried to get help for his gambling addiction, but resources for his addiction were limited. The DOJ noted that Ping will be on three years of supervised release following his prison term.

“Your crime was very serious, but was driven by severe addiction,” U.S. District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright said. “Gambling addiction can destroy the life of someone who is otherwise an upstanding citizen.”

Ping resigned from his position in 2023, when the theft was initially discovered. Ping agreed to pay full restitution to the state, its insurer, and the IRS for his tax obligations. In total, Ping owes $1,118,362.

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