Get your taxes done using TurboTax

What explanation does the employer offer that supports their position?
Maybe they did not reduce the wages and simply deposited the funds as after tax.
In that case it would not be pretax and you can enter the $6240 in the program as additional personal contribution to get the tax deduction on F1040, line 25. But it sounds like that's not the way it should have been handled by the employer.