Seattle – A 47-year-old Everett, Washington, man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 2 years in prison for his embezzlement scheme that stole more than $1 million from a commercial flooring business he co-founded with a friend, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman.  David M. Gluth, founded Gluth Commercial Flooring with a friend who put up $500,000 to start the company. Between 2011 and 2016, Gluth and a co-conspirator raided the company accounts to pay for everything from a home mortgage, to luxury vacations, to Nordstrom bills, and liquor purchases.  At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones told Gluth “You treated the victim like your personal ATM…. Your return on (your friend’s) investment was to orchestrate a significant and devastating fraud” upon the victim.

According to records filed in the case, Gluth conspired with company bookkeeper, Jodi Hamrick, to not only raid company funds, but to defraud financial institutions by taking out loans and obtaining credit lines without the knowledge or permission of the company’s co-owner.  The two used the company funds for a variety of personal expenses. The lies and deceit in this scheme involved forged signatures, forged documents, altered records, secret bank accounts, secret credit cards, false bookkeeping entries, and false statements in declarations and court filings.  The evidence in the case includes years of Skype instant messages between Gluth and Hamrick, showing the planning and execution of the fraud in minute detail.

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