North Texas CEO who tried to buy British soccer teams sentenced to 20 years in fraud case
North Texas resident Christopher Kirchner will spend 20 years in federal prison after he defrauded investors of more than $70 million, according to a federal prosecutor in North Texas.
Kirchner founded Slync, a supply chain management software company, in 2017 and was its CEO until he was fired by the company’s board in 2022, according to a news release from the Department of Justice/ U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
He was initially charged in February 2023 and was convicted by a federal jury in January in Fort Worth of four counts of wire fraud and seven counts of engaging in monetary transactions derived from unlawful activity.
Kirchner, who lives in a $6.1 million home in the tony Vaquero neighborhood in Westlake, was sentenced on July 11, which also came with an order to pay more than $65 million in restitution, according to the news release.
Federal authorities said Kirchner raised more than $71 million fraudulently from investors. He made false representations and promises about Slync’s business, financials and customers. He made “fantastical revenue projects” as a part of the fraud, according to the news release. In total, he misappropriated more than $25 million in investor funds.
That misappropriation included nearly 100 wire transfers to move money from the company’s Silicon Valley Bank account into a company JPMorgan Chase account — to which he had sole access., according to the release. That money was then moved to a personal account, as was another $20 million. That money was used to buy things like a $16 million private jet, a suite at AT&T Stadium, luxury vehicles like a Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz G-Class, and a $500,000 Richard Mille watch, Rolex watches and a Cartier necklace.
“Even as his company was circling the drain, Chris Kirchner was spending millions of his investors’ money on himself,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton, who prosecuted the case. “Apparently, projecting personal prosperity was more important to him than making payroll.”
Kirchner also attempted to purchase two British soccer clubs but backed out on the deals, the BBC reported. In one of them, Kirchner backed out when the funds didn’t clear, according to the news release.
Kirchner tried to replace some of the money he’d stolen when Slync struggled to make payroll in spring 2022. He’d drained the company of funds and tried to convince at least four investors to wire around $850,000 to Slync as part of what he said was another series of investments, according to the news release.
The company’s board never authorized another series of investments.
Kirchner tried to explain away the company’s payroll problems with lies, the news release states, and fired an employee who went to the company’s board to report that Kirchner may have exaggerated Slync’s financial success to investors. Right after he was suspended by the board of directors in July 2022, Kirchner removed IT administration privileges from key employees.
Kirchner then tried to delete around 18 gigabytes of Slync data, including emails, according to the release.
This story was originally published July 16, 2024 at 7:44 PM.