Former Alotech Ltd. CFO John H.C. Black has been charged with stealing $1.2 million from the manufacturer of cast parts, much of which he allegedly spent on buying gifts for women he met on a “sugar daddy” dating website.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio said Monday that a criminal information had been filed charging Black, 56, with one count of wire fraud.
According to the charging document, he used Alotech’s business checking account and corporate credit cards to spend more than $450,000 on buying cars and making purchases at Louis Vuitton, Sak’s Fifth Avenue, Victoria’s Secret, Neiman Marcus and other stores.
Prosecutors said the gifts to women Black met on the website seekingarrangements.com included lingerie, purses, designer clothing, jewelry and an Audi automobile. The site touts itself as the leading sugar daddy dating site with 3.6 million members in 139 countries, matching rich, older men with women in their 20s.
“Buying female companionship with Alotech’s bank account was not what John Black was hired to do,” Stephen D. Anthony, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office, said in a news release.
Black’s attorney Richard Lillie told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he intends to plead guilty to the charges, and will explain his conduct to the judge.
“This is obviously a very unusual case, but we believe he was suffering from some very unusual and severe medical problems at the time,” Lillie said. “We hope to broach those with the court at the appropriate time.”
Black served as Alotech’s CFO from July 2009 to August 2012. According to prosecutors, he began issuing multiple corporate checks for his personal benefit around early 2011 and made many of his illicit purchases on shopping trips to Chicago.
The criminal case was filed a little over a year after Alotech sued Huntington Bank for “gross negligence,” alleging that Huntington failed to recognize and investigate Black’s embezzlement of more than $1 million. The suit, which has been settled, said he used the money to shower various women with “lavish gifts.”
Featured image: Flickr user Maegan Tintari, CC BY 2.0