A Pittsburgh-area duo allegedly stole lots of money to start a car collection!
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a duo setup a residential construction company to milk funds out of Pittsburgh-area Marco Contractors to the tune of $8.7 million. A chunk of that money went towards buying quite the lineup of cars - 55-year-old Sue O’Neill and her unidentified partner used their stolen money to buy a 1978 Chevy 2T Corvette, 1966 Pontiac GTO, 1953 Mercury Monterey, and1969 Ford Mustang.
“A federal complaint said Ms. O'Neill, who lives in the Sewickley area, and a partner identified only as R.G. used the stolen money to buy property, vehicles and construction equipment,” according to the story. “The embezzlement scheme ranks among the largest ever prosecuted here.”
Sue O’Neill had entered a guilty plea for the charges against her in September, and was order to pay restitution, and $428,710 in back taxes and fines. O’Neill also faces up to 20 years in prison, and the criminal sentencing is scheduled to take place in the spring of 2020.
According to a court filing, O’Neill began embezzling in 2009 from the commercial general contracting firm. She issued $6.7 million in check from Marco over the years, which were deposited into a firm O’Neill owned with another person under the name of Bulldog Contractors - another $2 million made its way into O’Neill’s personal banking account.
In addition to the lot of cars that were purchased with the embezzled funds, the stolen money was used to buy construction equipment, including a couple of trailers, a compact track loader, and a compact excavator.
This is one of the largest embezzlement schemes, but not quite record breaking, with the largest ever uncovered crime of the sorts being a $13 million dollar theft from Matthews International, which was carried out by Cynthia Mills - Million is currently in federal prison.
There is no word on what happened to the cars purchased from the fraudulent funds, while they've likely been seized by now.
