Missouri Man Pleads Guilty To Embezzling Nearly $5 Million From Leasing Concern; Was Company Controller; Gambling Blamed

From Kansas City infoZine on 3/1/14:

A Neosho, Missouri man pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing more than $4.9 million from his employer.
 

Springfield, MO - infoZine - David VanWinkle, 60, of Neosho, waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush to wire fraud, money laundering, and failure to pay taxes.

VanWinkle was the comptroller for Frontier Leasing Incorporated (FLI) in Joplin, Missouri. By pleading guilty today, VanWinkle admitted that he stole $4,911,621 from FLI between June 2008 and December 2013, which he spent on personal expenses and gambling.

Based on a report from a financial institution, federal agents began investigating unusual deposits VanWinkle made into his business accounts for two businesses, VanWinkle Accounting and VanWinkle Farms.

VanWinkle, acting as the comptroller for FLI, received payments from FLI’s customers in the form of checks. VanWinkle deposited some of those checks into FLI’s legitimate business accounts but deposited other checks into another checking account under the name of FLI that VanWinkle had opened at another bank. VanWinkle was the sole person on this secret account; no one else was aware that FLI had the account and VanWinkle was not authorized to open an account or deposit any of FLI’s customer payment checks into the account.
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