COLUMBUS, Ohio — Robert W. Walton, Jr., 54, of Loveland, Ohio, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court to one count of wire fraud and one count of theft from an employee benefit plan, admitting to orchestrating an investment fraud scheme in Pike County and failing to remit more than $50,000 that had been withheld from employee paychecks to employee retirement funds.
According to court documents, Walton, who was the president of Hadsell Chemical Processing, LLC (HCP) and related entities, engaged in a scheme to defraud dozens of victim investors of HCP by fraudulently seeking investments in the form of promissory notes, claiming they were personally guaranteed by a prominent local business owner, when in fact they were not.
Walton also admitted to falsely representing his company’s future revenues from another business, creating fake invoices that stated millions of dollars of revenue, which he provided to investors, while the actual legitimate business revenue HCP had with that other business was approximately $50,000.
During his employment at HCP, Walton was responsible for approving the remittance of employee retirement funds to an employee benefit plan sponsored by HCP but failed to remit approximately $53,000 withheld from employees’ pay, failing to transfer the funds into employee retirement funds.
The United States is seeking more than $8.6 million in restitution for the victims of the fraud scheme. Walton faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and up to five years in prison for embezzling from an employee benefit plan, with the sentencing to be determined by the Court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.