Former President of Maryland Corporation Sentenced to Two Years in Prison for Embezzling Over $885,000
Spent Corporate Money on Phone Sex and Prostitutes, Claiming the Expenditures Were Advertising Expenses
| U.S. Attorney’s Office October 10, 2012 |
BALTIMORE—U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Mark Chandler Goodnow, age 56, of Pasadena, Maryland, today to two years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for wire fraud in connection with embezzling more than $885,000 from a corporation he controlled. Judge Bennett also entered orders requiring Goodnow to forfeit and pay restitution of $885,071.
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“A corporate executive violates his duty of trust to shareholders, investors, and taxpayers if he spends money for his personal benefit and falsely report it as a business expense,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.
According to his plea agreement, Goodnow was the president and chief executive officer of a national fast food franchise that maintained its principal office in Severna Park, Maryland.
From 2006 to 2012, on more than 200 occasions, Goodnow spent a total of approximately $885,071 of the company’s money to pay three Texas women for telephone sex and their personal expenses and to pay prostitutes in Maryland. Goodnow concealed the unauthorized expenditures by reporting them in the company’s records as advertising expenditures.
This law enforcement action is part of President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch and, with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the FBI for its work in the investigation and praised Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Clarke, who prosecuted the case.