ORANGE COUNTY, FL. – U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron has sentenced Richard Barrett Dale Walker (38, The Villages) to five years and five months in federal prison for wire fraud and bank fraud. Walker was also ordered to pay $790,600 in restitution and an $839,305.30 forfeiture order.
Walker had pleaded guilty on June 23, 2020.
According to court documents, Walker was the part-time office manager of a locally owned business where he worked 10 hours a week and was responsible for paying bills and managing the finances of the business. He was paid $500 per week. Walker also had two companies of his own: RBD Distributors LLC and Shotgun Shooting Supply LLC.
Walker’s scheme consisted of two parts. First, from January 2014 to July 3, 2018, Walker used the business’s bank account, without authorization, to write $751,824.29 in checks to himself and his two companies. In total, there were more than 500 checks, ranging from $145.89 to $16,981.03, each of which included the forged signature of the owner of the business.
The second part of the scheme occurred from March 19 to July 3, 2018. During that time period, Walker used the business’s personal and corporate credit cards to charge $301,328.65 in fraudulent/unauthorized credit card transactions that were paid to Walker’s company, RBD Distributors. Walker sometimes paid for those credit card transactions by writing a check or initiating a transfer from the business’s bank account.
Walker engaged in a series of actions to hide and cover up his fraudulent scheme including changing the address for the business’s credit card statements from the actual location of the business to the address of a relative of Walker (so that the owner of the business would no longer receive credit card statements); adding himself as “Treasurer” of the business by sending an annual report to the Florida Secretary of State that falsely represented that he had that position with the company; adding his email and phone number to an account for the business’s corporate card; and adding an email address to another of the business’s corporate cards.
After deducting the amounts returned by Walker during his scheme and the reversal of some of the unauthorized credit card charges, the total amount of restitution in the case is $790,600.
This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the United States Secret Service. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg.