Tidewater embezzler gets 5-year prison term

A  judge on Monday sentenced 50-year-old Brookings resident Gary Alan Green to five and a half years in federal prison for mail fraud and money laundering while he was chief financial officer for the Brookings-based Tidewater Contractors, Inc.

U.S. District Judge Owen M. Panner also ordered Green to pay $402,706 restitution to Tidewater.

Green pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering and was convicted in US. District Court in Medford in March of this year.

Between September 2007 and September 2008, while serving as Tidewater’s chief financial officer, Green devised a sophisticated scheme to defraud the company, embezzling more than $500,000, according to the federal indictment. Green was making an annual salary of approximately $90,000, authorities said.

Green’s scheme involved creating bogus invoices to have Tidewater pay for fictitious company insurance policies, professional services and geotechnical consulting services for the company. Green diverted the funds to pay for credit card convenience checks he used for investments in mutual fund companies, to honeymoon in Greece, to purchase cattle and a 53-foot sailboat, and to pay other personal expenses.

The embezzlement was first noticed and brought to Tidewater’s attention by the fraud investigation division of Chase Credit Card Services. Tidewater officials informed local authorities, who launched an investigation.

The indictment says that Green delivered the bogus invoices along with Tidewater check request forms to Tidewater’s Accounts Payable, with the invoices used as supporting documents. Green requested that each check be returned to him when it was issued to attach financial information or reports with the checks.

The indictment said the first check was presented to John David Baldwin, vice president and secretary of Tidewater, as payment for Tidewater insurance being financed through Chase Services. The check, and subsequent checks, were sent to Chase Services, indicating the checks were to be applied and used as payment for an account number that was Green’s personal Visa account.

A week after his March conviction, Tidewater reported it had received some of the money Green had embezzled. Green had turned over the sailboat, which he had bought for a reported $200,000, to the company. Green also turned over proceeds of cattle grazing contracts he was involved in, according to Tidewater’s attorney at the time, Ted Fitzgerald .

The boat and and the cattle have been sold; however, an additional $300,000 remained outstanding, Fitzgerald said.

The sentence imposed on Green Monday was longer than the federal sentencing guideline calculated for him because of his criminal history, said Byron Chatfield of the U.S. Department of Justice office in Medford.

Green was convicted in a Medford state court in 2003 for committing nearly identical crimes, using false invoices and fictitious businesses. In that case he embezzled more than $600,000 from the Ashland-based Darez Inc., where he was an accountant. He was convicted on three counts of aggravated theft and one of racketeering, and spent 18 months in prison.