It could be worse.
It seems that Randy Pitchford and his wife, Kristy, have lost over $3 million to a former personal assistant. The assistant, John Wright Martin, was originally hired in 2014 for a salary of $45,000 yearly. But he eventually got hands on his employer’s American Express business account.
Why, Johnny looks like such a good boy.
He apparently charged an almost insane number of things on it, too. Clothing, jewelry, electronics, Amazon movie rentals; his spending ran the gamut. Most insulting, though, was the $591,000 house he bought in one of the upscale neighborhoods in Frisco, Texas. He also donated $10,000 to The Trevor Project charity, and forged a number of checks in Kristy’s name tallying over $73,000.
The Pitchfords somehow managed to not notice all of this spending until September 2016. They suddenly discovered that there were insufficient funds in the payroll account for Nerdvana Frisco, a restaurant/coffee shop owned by Kristy. She contacted Martin, who claimed it was the result of a mixup and promised to fix everything. in March 2017, he signed a contract regarding the wrongfulness of his actions and pledged to pay them back $780,000. The $598,000 check he then wrote them, naturally, bounced.
Randy estimates his losses from Martin at around $3 million. He also clarified in a Twitter post that it’s his and his wife’s personal accounts being depleted; Gearbox isn’t in any financial danger from this. That said, there may be more, according to him:
We keep finding stuff. As much damage as he did, he didn’t destroy us.
The Pitchfords won a lawsuit against Martin earlier this year, in which the summary judgement awarded them $2million plus legal fees. Martin failed to appear to defend himself in the suit, which accused him of breach of contract, fraud, and theft. Martin has since disappeared, which seems to not be unusual behavior for him. While the Pitchfords are his richest targets, a former friend of Martin’s, Matthew Worthen, alleges that he’s out $10,000 thanks to Martin. There’s also the bond he skippped town on for a felony drunk driving conviction in 2017, and the habit of writing bad checks all over, for which he was once convicted. He was also arrested in mid-July for writing a bad check towards the $77,000 purchase of a Cadillac Escalade. From which he posted bail and skipped town. Noticing a pattern with this asshole, yet?
Martin wrote to Dallas News on Facebook, stating “there is much more to this story than me being charged for crimes I did not commit,” after which he disappeared again, not answering any replies to his statement. Which is funny, because it sure looks like he’s scamming people, and actively flouting the law. And somehow, not a single judge has looked at his history and decided to set the bail at a level this asshole can’t afford.
On the flipside, I have a Randy Pitchford joke. Here it goes:
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Source: PC Gamer
About Author
