According to Baltimore (WJZ) Chad Arrington, known as Chad Focus, surrounded himself with money, cars and a lavish lifestyle; One that federal prosecutors say was allegedly paid for with stolen money.
An indictment released Tuesday said that Arrington worked as a search engine analyst at a company where he was issued a credit card for business expenses.
Prosecutors believe that between January 2015 and August 2016 Arrington used the company credit card to make $4.1 million in unauthorized purchases.
“He was using that company credit card to make purchases for himself, to enrich himself and his own personal business and his brand,” U.S. Attorney for Maryland Robert Hur said.
Some of the purchases included concert tickets, billboards, audio equipment and travel expenses.
The indictment also says that Arrington bought followers on social media and paid outside platforms to artificially increase plays on streaming services.
“He took a number of steps to basically cover up his tracks and make it much, much hard for his employer to figure out what he was doing and stealing over the course of time,” Hur said.
Those steps included allegedly forging signatures from supervisors signing off the purchases and having co-conspirators use computer software to falsify billing statements.
Arrington now faces up to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Arrington made his initial appearance. He will have a detention hearing later in the week.
