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Description: Statesville, North Carolina criminal law lawyer represented Defendant charged with wire fraud.
From 2013 to January 2020, Donna Osowitt Steele, agte 53, from Taylorsville, North Carolina, executed an extensive scheme to defraud her employer, identified in court documents as Victim Company A, a privately held U.S.-based subsidiary of a foreign company that manufactures carbide products. Steele began working for Victim Company A’s shipping department in 1999. Over the next 20 years, Steele was promoted to various positions within the company, including to the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO), which she held until she was terminated in January 2020.
Court records show that, while serving as Vice President and later as CEO, Steele used her positions to embezzle funds from Victim Company A in a number of ways, including through fraudulent company credit card purchases, company checks, Quickbooks transactions, and wire transfers. For example, Steele used company credit cards to pay for $6 million in personal expenditures, including to make high-end retail store purchases, to pay for a family wedding, and to make purchases related to Opulence by Steele, a luxury clothing and boutique company owned by the defendant. Steele also issued and caused to be issued to herself approximately 98 checks totaling more than $2.8 million from Victim Company A’s bank accounts, which Steele deposited into her personal bank account. Furthermore, Steele caused 127 fraudulent and unauthorized wire transfers to be executed as Quickbooks transactions, transferring more than $4.7 million from Victim Company A’s bank accounts to her personal bank account. During the same time period, Steele executed at least 117 fraudulent and unauthorized bank wires, totaling more than $2.2 million, from Victim Company A’s bank accounts to her personal bank account, which she then used for her personal benefit, including to fund a personal real estate closing.
According to court documents, over the course of the scheme, Steele embezzled more than $15 million from Victim Company A. As a result of Steele’s embezzlement, Victim Company A experienced several difficulties, including vendors withholding products from the company for non-payment or late payments, employees not being paid on time, and/or employees having their insurance cancelled without warning. Court records show that, in an effort to hide the fraudulent scheme, Steele limited communications and interactions between the employees and the owners of Victim Company A. Steele also convinced employees that company owners should be feared and lied to employees about the true nature of Victim Company A’s financial trouble.
On January 12, 2022, Steele pleaded guilty to wire fraud. She is currently released on bond and will be ordered to report the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
In making today’s announcement, U.S. Attorney King thanked the FBI for their investigation of the case.
Assistant United States Attorney Maria Vento of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.
18 U.S.C. 1343 provides:
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise
any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtain-
ing money or property by means of false or
fraudulent pretenses, representations, or prom-
ises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by
means of wire, radio, or television communica-
tion in interstate or foreign commerce, any
writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for
the purpose of executing such scheme or arti-
fice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation
occurs in relation to, or involving any benefit
authorized, transported, transmitted, trans-
ferred, disbursed, or paid in connection with, a
presidentially declared major disaster or emer-
gency (as those terms are defined in section 102
of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and
Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122)), or
affects a financial institution, such person shall
be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned
not more than 30 years, or both.
Outcome: 11/04/2022 Minute Entry: SENTENCING as to Donna Osowitt Steele held before District Judge Kenneth D. Bell. Factual Basis Found. Government attorney: Maria Kathleen Vento. Defendant attorney: Christopher C. Fialko and Elliot Sol Abrams. Court Reporter: Deborah Cohen-Rojas. (mek) (Entered: 11/04/2022)
11/04/2022 42 JUDGMENT as to Donna Osowitt Steele (1), Count(s) 1, 96 months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, $100 special assessment, $17,189,748.26 restitution. Signed by District Judge Kenneth D. Bell on 11/4/2022. (mek) (Entered: 11/04/2022)
11/04/2022 43 STATEMENT OF REASONS (Sealed - Attorney) re: 42 Judgment (available to: USA, Donna Osowitt Steele). Signed by District Judge Kenneth D. Bell on 11/4/2022. (mek) (Entered: 11/04/2022)
96 months imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, $100 special assessment, $17,189,748.26 restitution
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments:
