Salinas Man Charged In Embezzlement Scheme

SAN JOSE – A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Neal Morton on bank fraud and aggravated identity theft charges, announced Acting United States Attorney Brian J. Stretch and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, Acting Special Agent in Charge Thomas McMahon.

According to the indictment, Morton, a resident of Salinas, was employed in the accounting department at Tehama Golf Club, a privately owned entity located in Carmel.   From 2009 through February 2014, Morton allegedly devised a scheme to embezzle funds from the Tehama Golf Club.  As part of the scheme, he issued or caused to be issued checks drawn on the Tehama Golf Club bank accounts that were made payable to himself. To conceal the scheme, Morton either made or caused to be made entries in Tehama Golf Club’s accounting records falsely reflecting that the checks were for valid business expenses when in fact they were made payable to himself. Morton deposited the proceeds from the fraudulent checks into a bank account he controlled. Many of the fraudulent checks Morton signed were required to be co-signed by another authorized signatory at Tehama Golf Club. To evade this requirement, and in furtherance of his fraudulent scheme, Morton forged those signatures using electronic copies of them he had saved on his computer. In at least one instance, Morton also forged a co-signer’s signature by hand.

Morton is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court in San Jose on October 29, 2015, before the Honorable Paul Singh Grewal, U.S. Magistrate Court Judge.

An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum sentence of thirty years in prison and a fine of $1,000,000 for bank fraud, in violation of  18 U.S.C. § 1344(2).  The maximum sentence for aggravated identity theft, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, is two years in prison to run consecutive to the underlying felony and a fine of $250,000.  However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

Assistant United States Attorneys Thomas Newman and Jose A. Olivera are prosecuting the case.  The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation.