Pro poker player and a former executive at StyleHaul, Dennis Blieden, pleaded guilty to the charges of embezzling $22 million from his employer and using that money for crypto trading. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced the guilty plea on November 22.
Blieden transferred company money to his personal bank account.
According to the court’s announcement, Blieden was the controller and vice president of accounting and finance at StyleHaul during October 2015 and March 2019 he misused this authority to wire company money to his personal bank account.
In March 2018, Dennis Blieden won World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic and scored a first-place prize of $1 million. Out of $22 million that he wired from company account to his account, $8,473,734 were transferred to his cryptocurrency accounts.
Sentenced to be announced in March
Blieden was indicted back in July and taken into federal custody. The pro poker player used the money he stole from the company to write $1,204,000 in personal checks to poker players, and $1,134,956 was used to pay off his credit cards. Blieden pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
The court has scheduled March 20 sentencing hearing, and Blieden might face a statutory maximum sentence of 22 years in federal prison.
