BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A federal grand jury has indicted a rap artist for wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.
Chad Arrington, also known as “Chad Focus”, 31, of Randallstown was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with allegations that he used a company credit card to make over $4.1 million in purchases.
According to the indictment, Arrington was employed by Company 1 as a Search Engine Optimization Specialists from 2011 to 2018. The company assigned Arrington a company credit card after he had signed an agreement to only use it for business-related expenses.
The indictment alleges that from at least January 2015 through August 2018, Arrington and four co-conspirators used the card for fraudulent purchases, including to promote the Chad Focus brand and to make unauthorized purchases that benefited each personally.
Arrington allegedly used the credit card to make over $1.5 million in unauthorized purchases from entities and accounts controlled by the co-conspirators and in turn, the co-conspirators kicked back hundreds of thousands of dollars to Arrington by funneling cash payments to him and to accounts controlled by him.
In order to conceal the scheme, Arrington allegedly asked the co-conspirators to use computer software to make false entries on the credit card billing statements in order to conceal the recipient of the payments from Arrington’s supervisor and Company 1.
If convicted, Arrington faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud conspiracy and for each of two counts of wire fraud; and a mandatory minimum of two years in prison, consecutive to any other sentence for each of the four counts of aggravated identity theft.