Friday, February 27, 2009

Plea Agreement Set In Misappropriation Case For Exec Of West Virginia Company

Heidi C. Laughery, 46, of Meadville, Pennsylvania and the former CEO of Parkersburg, WVA-based Sequelle Communications Alliance Inc., is scheduled to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors tomorrow in a case in which she and other executives allegedly conspired to misappropriate some $4 million from the company. Laughery, who was CEO from August 2000 to March 2005, was indicted last August on charges of "frauds and swindles," bribery involving federal programs, money laundering and embezzlement. Her trial had been scheduled to begin next week. Three other individuals were allegedly involved in the fraud: James Larry Hymer, former CFO of Mentorgen LLC, an engineering firm that did contract work for Sequelle; and R. Scott Truslow, founder of Truscom LLC, another vendor of Sequelle. One way she defrauded the company was by obtaining loans with fraudulent applications. Sequelle is now defunct.

We note that Laughery was convicted in 1987 in California on wire fraud charges stemming from an embezzlement of some $130,000 in client funds from Merrill Lynch for whom she had worked as a financial consultant and broker. Laughery also had a 2001 personal bankruptcy filed in Ohio.

Read the story here, here and here

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heidi Laughery (Caroline) is not currently employed at BPL Global, contrary to the information provided in your blog posting. We request that you remove this statement from your posting to properly reflect the facts.

Steve Jennings
Chief Marketing Officer, BPL Global

Chris Marquet said...

Folks:

Please be respectful and do not post personal contact information on individuals.

Thank you,

Chris

Anonymous said...

Larry Hymer is still employed at BPL Global.

Anonymous said...

Heidi Laughery (aka Heidi Caroline) has changed her name again to Heidi Mitchell. She continues to work with BPL Global as a consultant.

Anonymous said...

Glad she is getting her due. She put on this smiling face and always portrayed her venture as not for profit and then one day that all changed to for profit. When asked if she thought that was underhanded in the way she tricked the government in to giving her the cash she had a very smug "so what" attitude.

Steve Jennings said...

Contrary to the May 13th posting by Anonymous: After leaving the employment of our firm Heidi Laughery (Caroline) has not and currently does not work with BPL Global as a consultant.

Steve Jennings
Chief Marketing Officer, BPL Global