An Aurora-based real estate executive is charged with forming a fake construction company with contracts worth at least $225,000 and posing as an FBI employee, according to reports.
Robert J. Berryhill, 51, is accused of creating a fictitious company as a way to redirect money on construction projects for his own personal use, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio office said, according to ABC news affiliate News Net 5. The damage comes to at least $225,919, prosecutors said.
"This defendant is accused of abusing the trust of his employer, his colleagues and his customers in an effort to enrich himself," Steven Dettelbach, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said in a written statement. "He is accused of using public contracts as a way to get his Corvette restored and his pockets lined with hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Berryhill, who served as the senior vice president of Carnegie Management and Development Corp. in Westlake, is charged with five counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count each of aggravated identity theft and falsely impersonating of an officer or employee of the United States.
The report notes that Berryhill defrauded CMDC, Knoxbi, Indy-Fedreau, Blaine and Welty from August 2008 through September 2009 to obtain money. He did this by creating false invoices in the name of Ore Enterprises -- the Pennsylvania company Berryhill hired to restore his vintage Corvette -- and then submitted them to Blaine and Welty.
Those companies paid AEC and then passed the cost of the invoice to Knoxbi and Indy-Fedreau for final payment, according to the report.