A former Milwaukee Tool employee accused last year of stealing more than $1 million worth of tools from the manufacturer has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Maxwell sentenced Mathew Yang on Aug. 7 to five years in prison followed by five years of extended supervision for one felony theft count. Yang pleaded no contest to five felonies, including four counts of theft, while nine other charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Yang was also ordered to pay Milwaukee Tool $1.08 million in restitution. WTMJ reported that nearly $134,000 seized from Yang’s bank account by the Brookfield Police Department will be applied toward that amount. For the other four felony counts, prison sentences were imposed and stayed, with Yang ordered to serve nine years of probation.

MDM first reported on the case in September 2025, after prosecutors charged Yang in connection with an alleged order-and-delete scheme that ran from March 2024 to March 2025.

Court filings indicated that Yang created and deleted approximately 115 orders using Milwaukee Tool’s ordering system, allowing products to be fulfilled and shipped without payment. The orders totaled more than $1.4 million, with 109 shipments delivered. Milwaukee Tool was able to cancel and recover six shipments, leaving the company’s estimated loss at just over $1 million.

The scheme was uncovered after a freight company contacted Milwaukee Tool in March 2025 to confirm the delivery address for a shipment of approximately 9,000 pounds of tools headed to a Wauwatosa, WI, apartment complex. Customer service employees could not locate the order in the company’s system, prompting an internal investigation.

Yang had worked for Milwaukee Tool for about eight years, first in its customer supply chain operation before moving into IT in 2023, giving him extensive knowledge of the company’s ordering system. Investigators also found a spreadsheet on his company laptop labeled “selling list” that contained retail and selling prices. Authorities said the evidence suggested he was reselling stolen tools in large quantities, potentially to Milwaukee Tool customers.