A Pittsburg resident who was a former president and CEO of a metal finishing company was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday for defrauding his shareholders, federal prosecutors said.
Harry Corl III was indicted on several wire fraud and money laundering counts by a federal grand jury in November 2018. On Sept. 25, 2023, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
From 2008 to 2014, Corl and his estranged wife and a co-defendant were executive officers for Nu-Metal Finishing, Inc. Prosecutors said they also served as trustees of the firm’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan and Trust (ESOP) which provided retirement benefits and savings to the company’s employees by purchasing and investing company stock for their collective benefit.
As trustees, they were obligated to competently manage the ESOP’s cash, stock, and assets and act in the best interests of the employee-shareholders. But they failed to do so, according to prosecutors.
From 2011 to 2014, Corl used Nu-Metal’s corporate accounts to pay for numerous personal expenses unrelated to the company’s activities. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said he used corporate funds to purchase extravagant jewelry from Tiffany & Co. and made lease payments on a Ferrari 599 GTB coupe, listing the firm as a lessee. He also mismanaged corporate funds by leasing a Bentley and buying a Mercedes S63 sedan, which the Corls flaunted on social media.
In May 2014, the Corls arranged a fraudulent sale of Nu-Metal. They presented themselves as the sole owners of the company and falsely claimed the ESOP had been terminated and was no longer a concern.
However, the ESOP and another shareholder owned well over 50% of the firm’s outstanding stock and were owed their portion of the proceeds from the company’s sale.
Court filings showed that Corl immediately transferred nearly the entire sale proceeds to his accounts and moved to Texas. The employees who participated in the ESOP, all laid off after the sale of the company, have not yet received their portion of the sale proceeds owed to them. Prosecutors said the victims lost retirement income, and some suffered serious financial distress as a result.
Besides his prison term, he is ordered to pay $253,625.50 in restitution to over 30 victim employees and shareholders, serve three years of supervised release after his release, and pay a $100 special assessment fee.
Corl will begin serving his sentence on June 13, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
7 comments
I hope there is still money to pay the shareholders – ten years is sufficient time to hide funds or perhaps have it eaten up by his attorneys.
Put the wife in the slammer also, she was the partner in crime.
People who steal money from their employees are among the lowest life forms on earth.
30 months? for destroying his employees future? 30 months? White Collar Crime Rules!!!!
Well at least they added a $100 special assessment fee. That’ll definitely make him think twice about doing this again!
if he files a low income waiver he won’t have to pay it
My hope is that in jail, this scum learns the meaning of BOHICA.
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