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A Marina Del Rey man faced a judge on Wednesday after being arrested for allegedly jacking $370,000 from the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles.
The FBI arrested Channing Smack, 51, a property manager for 22 Girl Scouts locations, on Tuesday under federal money laundering charges, according to KTLA. In a series of not-so-smart moves, when the FBI approached Smack on Monday about the alleged charges, he asked, "Am I going away for life?" And then he reportedly withdrew $64,500 from the accounts the feds believed were holding the embezzled dough an hour later. The next day, the FBI took him into custody for charges of laundering $50,000 of the total amount he bilked from the children's organization.
But wait, there's more. The Los Angeles Times reported that Smack had approved invoices for a company called ZB Land Maintenance & Engineering that is registered under his dead brother's name, Zachary Bryan Smack. According to the affidavit, between Aug. 2012 and Oct. 2013, the Girl Scouts issued checks worth $368,278 to the firm.
In addition, Smack had deposited the money into one of the two bank accounts that he allegedly opened under his brother's name. There's were the feds had surveillance footage of someone looking like he could very well be Smack doing some bank transactions under that account. Whoops.
Carol Dedrich, a spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles had discovered they discovered the suspicious activity, they let authorities know and then fired Smack, reported NBC Los Angeles.
Hopefully, the Girl Scout cookies are safe though.
