Bookkeeper embezzles $1M from NC tree nursery, buys home theater and truck, feds say
A longtime bookkeeper and office manager at a family-owned tree nursery in North Carolina has pleaded guilty to stealing upwards of $1 million from his employer over six years, according to the federal government.
The money went toward outfitting a home theater, buying a new truck and paying off his mortgage, prosecutors said.
Richard Allen Clark, 55, pleaded guilty to mail fraud, money laundering and making a false statement on his tax return, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina said Thursday in a news release. Clark is from Lenoir, about 86 miles northwest of Charlotte in the foothills.
A defense attorney representing Clark told McClatchy News in a statement Friday that his client is “a family man who has led a life of hard work and made meaningful contributions to his community.”
“All of us make mistakes of varying magnitudes. Yesterday in federal court, Mr. Clark accepted full responsibility for this one,” attorney William R. Terpening said. “He looks forward to continuing to actively cooperate with the government and to making restitution, and expresses regret and apologies. He looks forward to providing the court with context for his actions and their circumstances, and to sharing some of his side of this story, at the forthcoming sentencing hearing.”
Court documents show Clark started worked for a family that operated two companies in the tree nursery business in 2003. Prosecutors did not identify the companies.
Part of his responsibilities reportedly included maintaining financial records, paying vendors and the Internal Revenue Service and keeping track of the companies’ bank accounts.
In 2013, Clark started writing checks to himself from the company, prosecutors said. He is accused of covering his tracks by altering the check description in QuickBooks, an accounting software frequently used by small businesses.
As part of his plea agreement, the government said Clark “admitted that he laundered the funds he embezzled from his employer by withdrawing customer funds from the company’s bank account through multiple fraudulent checks payable to himself, which he deposited into multiple personal bank accounts.”
Three years later in 2016, his employer reportedly changed addresses and instructed Clark to close one of its bank accounts in Lenoir. But prosecutors said Clark ignored the request.
“Clark did not close the account, but secretly used the Capital Bank account to steal funds from the victim companies,” the government said.
He reportedly did so by telling customers to wire or mail checks to the old address, which prosecutors said he then deposited into the bank account the company assumed was closed. According to court documents, Clark used a mailbox at the old address to receive everything from payments to bank correspondence without his employers finding out.
He continued to write checks to himself from that bank account for years, prosecutors said.
From 2013 to 2019, the government said Clark withdrew from his own bank account large sums of money stolen from his employer — including $50,000 for a home theater, $80,000 for his mortgage and $20,000 for a Ford F-250.
“The remaining funds (were used) to pay for his personal lifestyle of dining out, shopping, traveling and automobile loan payments,” prosecutors said.
Clark is also accused of failing to report the stolen income on his tax returns.
At sentencing, he faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for mail fraud, up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for money laundering and up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine for making false statements on his tax return.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Bookkeeper embezzles $1M from NC tree nursery, buys home theater and truck, feds say."
