BATON ROUGE – A former corporate executive has been sentenced for stealing more than $7.6 million from a Baton Rouge based health services company.

Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that 41-year-old Michael David Pitts was sentenced to 48 months in the Bureau of Prisons which will be followed by three years of supervised release.

United State Attorney Walt Green said Pitts was ordered to pay $7,861,679 in restitution to Amedisys Inc.

Green said Pitts served as Amedisys’ Vice President of Tax between Jan. 2005 and July 2014. During that time Pitts schemed to defraud the company by using shell corporations and fake tax credits. Pitts allegedly caused Amedisys to make 21 wire transfers totaling more than $7.6 million to his shell companies then to his personal accounts.

“Today Mr. Pitts’ insatiable greed landed him in jail for the next four years,” Green said. “He violated the trust that Amedisys placed in him for over nine years.”

On its website, Amedisys says it provides home health and hospice care to approximately 380,000 patients annually.