A Baltimore rap artist who juxed $4 million dollars to promote his budding rap career has just been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for his thieving ways.
According to The Baltimore Sun, Chad Arrington a.k.a. “Chad Focus” plead guilty to stealing a King Kong grip from his employer to finance his aspiring rap career using the company credit card. For his monumental transgression the 33-year-old Randallstown man was giving 30 months behind bars by U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett.
“At his sentencing hearing, Arrington said he’d been humiliated by national public attention on his case, and his attorney said that his actions were in part fueled by amphetamine use and undiagnosed mental illness. While federal prosecutors sought four years behind bars, his attorney asked for one year and one day.”
All things considered, two years and change isn’t a bad sentence.
While working for Agora Publishing, Chad Focus used the company credit card to purchase sound equipment, studio kits, instruments, and music technology. He used it all to produce his own music through his company, Focus Music Entertainment LLC. The man even went as far as to buy a billboard in Times Square and actually paid for “Likes” on his social media page.
Homie must’ve really believed in himself if he took penitentiary chances like that just to get his name out there. Unfortunately music goers did not.
How did all of this go unnoticed for so long you ask? Well…
“In order to conceal the scheme, Arrington asked two 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. In addition, Arrington forged the signature of his supervisor on his credit card billing statements to make it appear as though he had received approval for certain purchases.”
Because of the matter, 10 employees had to take pay cuts and Chad Focus must pay back more than $4 million in restitution.
Luckily for Chad Focus rappers who come out of prison tend to experience more success as they tend to garner more street cred for their prison stints. Just sayin.’
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