A 401(k) plan fiduciary has been charged with stealing more than $750,000 from the plan – and apparently using that plan as something of a personal piggybank.
Wallace D. Gregerson, president and sole owner of Lighting Affiliates Inc., was indicted last week in federal court in Minneapolis on six counts of mail fraud, two counts of money laundering and one count of theft and embezzlement from an employee plan.
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the U.S. attorney’s office says that Gregerson, 65, used most of the money to meet company expenses, pay country club membership dues, buy tickets to sports events, meet youth sports sponsorship obligations, buy men’s clothing and cover tuition payments for his daughter.
From February 2011 to July 2013, Gregerson allegedly drained the profit-sharing portion of more than $675,000 and skimmed nearly $81,000 from his former employees’ individual 401(k) accounts.
He managed to siphon the money from those accounts by telling the financial institutions holding the plans’ assets – U.S. Bancorp, Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo, according to the report – to provide him with the money by pledging that he was reinvesting in another qualified plan or that the withdrawals were at the employee’s request.
