ST. LOUIS • A man whose “porn problem” led him to use nearly $480,000 of his Maryland Heights-based employer’s money to woo strippers was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in prison.
John David Berrett started small, his lawyer said, visiting strippers on a website that sold “tokens” that could be used for tips or private performances. Soon, lawyer John Dosdall said, Berrett was spending hundreds of dollars per visit.
His indictment claims he went on to spend more than $100,000 on online tokens alone. Once he found out that the website took half the women’s money, he switched to PayPal, FBI Special Agent Eric Mills testified in court, spending a total of $87,000. In all he tipped the women more than 2,200 times, Mills said.
Berrett also bought a sex toy, a trampoline, new tires, clothing, an electronic piano, flowers, shoes and chocolates and paid $26,000 in college tuition, according to Mills and court documents. Berrett also flew strippers to meet him — one from Scranton, Pa., to Atlanta for breakfast and another from the Czech Republic to meet him in Europe, Mills said.
Berrett created fake invoices in 2013 and 2014 to hide his theft of the money, including invoices from fake companies that he’d created, Mills said.
He also submitted his expense reports at or near deadlines, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Tihen said in court filings, forcing his manager to give them only a “cursory look.”
Berrett was a senior engineer and national solutions architect for World Wide Technology at the time, and had worked for the company for about 10 years. He was working from his home in Gilbert, Ariz., helping the company prepare a bid for a $427 million Department of Defense contract. He exploited the autonomy he was given to work on the bid, and his ability to schedule his own travel and training and buy training materials such as books, manuals and tutorials, prosecutors said.
But when some of Berrett’s expenses came in after the bid was submitted, and one was for a “bribe,” company executives became concerned.
They found the stripper expenses, and confronted Berrett in a conference call, WWT President Joseph Koenig testified Wednesday. Berrett initially lied, before finally admitting, “Joe, I have a porn problem,” Koenig testified.
The “bribe” turned out to be a subscription to a wine club for a Milwaukee-area woman.
Tihen asked for a sentence within the recommended guidelines of 27 to 33 months for the five felony counts of wire fraud to which Berrett pleaded guilty in March. Dosdall asked for home confinement, saying Berrett could continue to support his family and repay the money that way.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry opted for 30 months, saying that it made “no sense” to her that Berrett threw “his life away.”
Berrett must also repay the money — $100,000 to his former employer and the rest to insurance companies.
I know guys who have gotten away with more in tax evasion and sentenced to much less time.