Financial comptroller guilty of $4.9m theft from leasing company

The former comptroller for Frontier Leasing Incorporated (FLI) has admitted stealing more than $4.9 million from the Missouri-based company, which he used for personal consumption and to fund a gambling habit.

David VanWinkle pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and failure to pay taxes at a federal court which heard he stole $4,911,621 from FLI between June 2008 and December 2013. The offences came to light after an investigation into unusual deposits VanWinkle made into his business accounts for two businesses, VanWinkle Accounting and VanWinkle Farms.

The investigation found VanWinkle had secretly deposited some checks from FLI’s customers which were payments due to the company into a separate checking account under the name of FLI that he had opened at another bank, rather than into the company’s legitimate accounts.

As well as failing to report the embezzled funds from FLI on his personal income tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), VanWinkle also failed to pay over to the IRS a total of $435,896 in payroll taxes collected from FLI employees’ paychecks.

VanWinkle, who worked for FLI for 22 years, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered him to forfeit to the government $4,911,621, a 2013 Holland tractor, a 2007 Hummer H3, a 2012 John Deere no-till seed drill, and $28,086 that was seized from various bank accounts.

According to court documents, VanWinkle’s embezzlement caused severe financial distress for FLI, whose employees took voluntary pay cuts to support the company as it struggled financially.