Henry Lo, Wire Mail Fraud, California 2023

Henry Lo, 51, a former Chief Financial Officer in San Francisco, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for committing wire fraud and mail fraud, announced United States Attorney Melinda Haag, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson, and United States Postal Inspection Service Inspector in Charge Rafael Nuñez.

Lo pleaded guilty on November 20, 2014, to two counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud. He held the position of CFO at a company known as AbsolutelyNew, Inc. (ANI) in San Francisco.

According to the plea agreement, Lo admitted to using ANI funds to make payments to his personal American Express account totaling $239,052.76. He also caused ANI funds totaling $564,310.54 to be paid to a PayPal account that he controlled.

Lo used ANI funds to purchase over $1.35 million in cashier’s checks, which he either deposited into his personal brokerage account at Charles Schwab & Co. (Schwab) or used to pay down his personal line of credit at Wells Fargo Bank. He also used a debit card connected to ANI’s bank account at Bank of America to make purchases for numerous personal items totaling at least $30,329.50.

In addition, Lo admitted to engaging in a separate scheme to defraud a person identified in the Indictment and Plea Agreement as ‘A.W.’ He induced A.W. to write him checks made payable to Schwab, which Lo purported would then be wired to the IRS on A.W.’s behalf to pay A.W.’s tax obligations. Instead, Lo deposited checks from A.W. totaling more than $125,000 into his own wife’s Schwab brokerage account, and then forged and mailed confirmation statements to A.W. that purported to be from Schwab.

Lo was indicted by a federal grand jury on August 19, 2014. He was charged with wire fraud, access device fraud, and mail fraud. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable William H. Orrick, U.S. District Judge, following a guilty plea on two counts in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud) and one count in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud).

As part of the sentence, Judge Orrick also ordered Lo to pay a fine of $10,000, restitution of $2,232,894.39, and a forfeiture money judgment in an equivalent amount. The defendant had previously been remanded into custody by Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James and will begin serving the sentence immediately.

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