The former chief financial officer of Houston-based LJA Engineering Inc., which has offices in Austin, San Antonio and The Woodlands, has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for carrying out a nearly $3.8 million embezzlement scheme.
Christopher McCullough, 47, formerly of Houston and now of Frederic, Colo., also was ordered to pay nearly $3.8 million in restitution to his former employer and to serve three years of supervised release after serving his 51-month prison term.
“This was an unusually vicious economic crime,” U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas said at McCullough’s sentencing hearing, “and one of the worst frauds I have ever seen.”
McCullough pleaded guilty April 29 to interstate transportation of stolen property—a cashier’s check he carried from Houston to Colorado. He faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Using access he enjoyed as CFO to LJA’s bank accounts, McCullough engaged in more than 200 transactions totaling more than $3.7 million in which he converted LJA funds to personal use, federal authorities said.
McCullough embezzled the money by withdrawing cash, writing checks drawn on the LJA accounts to pay his personal expenses, and buying cashier’s checks with the LJA funds that he used to pay personal expenses, authorities said
Authorities said the embezzled funds footed the bill for personal taxes owed to the IRS, stock purchases, the purchase of real estate in Houston and Colorado, and expenses related to construction, landscaping decorating of a home in Estes Park, Colo.
A federal grand jury indicted McCullough in March.
According to the indictment, McCullough entered LJA’s headquarters a few weeks after resigning from the firm removed several boxes thought to have contained financial records.
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