The former chief financial officer of a Holly Hill roofing company, fighting charges alleging he embezzled more than $150,000 from his employer, has been hit with a civil lawsuit stemming from the same allegations.
And it's not the first time the world traveler is alleged to have swindled his employer.
Matthew James Littlemore, 36, of Port Orange, has pleaded not guilty to grand theft over $100,000 and is scheduled for arraignment in Circuit Court on Thursday. He is also named as a defendant by Holly Hill-based R&R Industries Inc. in a civil complaint filed April 27 in Circuit Court, alleging he breached his employment contract by giving himself "unauthorized bonsues" and paying for his living expenses.
A similar civil lawsuit brought by FONA International Inc., of Geneva, Illinois, in December 2016 claimed Littlemore used the company's corporate credit card as "his own personal checkbook." That suit, settled last year, alleged Littlemore stole some $135,000.
No criminal charges were filed in that matter, but there were enough similarities between the Illinois complaint and that of the R&R Industries suit that CEO Guy Beasley remarked: "It was crazy. I could have been reading my own story."
Contacted recently, Littlemore declined comment. His attorney, Aaron Delgado, argued the disagreement over money should not be brought as a criminal case, that law enforcement involvement allows businesses to "use the government to fight their fights for them" at taxpayer expense.
"Anyone can make any allegation they want in a lawsuit," Delgado said. "In a sense, we welcome the lawsuit as the appropriate place to resolve disagreements about money."
Assuming FONA's finances
In July 2011, Littlemore met FONA International Inc.'s interim chief financial officer, James Evanhoff, at a convention in Arizona around July 2011, according to the suit filed in Kane County, Illinois, west of Chicago. FONA, which has an estimated $75 million annual revenue, produces flavors for food, beverage and nutritional companies.
Evanoff hired Littlemore on Oct. 1 of that year as finance director, overseeing all budget analysis, planning and cash flow, as well as treasury decisions, the suit states, adding Littlemore was put in charge of the corporate credit cards.
According to the suit, Littlemore claimed to have held several degrees, including one in business administration and finance from the University of Manchester, an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a graduate degree in treasury management from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Elsewhere, in legal documents and resumes, as well as on social media, Littlemore claimed to have attended more prestigious universities including Fettes College in Edinburgh, Scotland, University of Oxford in England, University of Melbourne in Australia, Leeds University and Harvard Business School.
A spokesperson for Harvard Business School said Littlemore attended an $8,250, 4-day certificate program at the Boston campus in April 2012, while employed by FONA. A University of Phoenix spokesperson confirmed he received an MBA at in April 2011. Fettes College said in an email Tuesday that Littlemore never attended either the college or the prep school and several other schools, including Oxford, had not immediately responded to an attendance verification request.
While the FONA suit stops short of claiming Littlemore didn't attend those schools, it alleges Littlemore seriously misrepresented his qualifications, going so far as to hire a former employee to do his job because he was incapable of doing it himself.
Closing the books
Over the course of several years, Littlemore created additional corporate accounts to both hide money and show an overstated increase in profits that resulted in FONA paying out around $227,000 in bonuses to employees and around $40,000 to himself, according to the suit. It also alleges Evanhoff, who now works for a competitor of FONA, helped Littlemore engineer a way to misappropriate funds without detection.
Then there were the trips.
Using company funds, Littlemore traveled to California, Australia and the United Kingdom and expensed $4,361.86 on planned trips to China and Dubai that he never took, the suit alleged.
Littlemore spent company funds to get a finance degree from the University of Oxford in England, where he wrote a dissertation using the confidential and sensitive company information, the suit stated.
All told, from October 2011 to his firing in September 2014, Littlemore stole more than $135,000, the suit stated, but also manipulated funds in excess of $500,000 to make the company's profits appear more than $2.2 million greater than they were, while giving himself and other employees hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses.
Part of Littlemore's job at FONA was to close the books at the end of each month, but despite the lofty education claims, the company said he had to hire outside help "because (he) lacked the ability to do so on his own."
Moving to Volusia
On Oct. 17, 2016, R&R Industries, an 80-person roofing company based in an industrial area on Carswell Avenue in Holly Hill, hired Littlemore to manage its finances.
In both a complaint to police and a civil suit, R&R Industries contends Littlemore couldn't manage the finances there, either.
Littlemore was asked to resign on Feb. 26 due to performance issues and his last day there was March 2, according to police.
Just like in Illinois, it wasn't until a few weeks after his departure that serious questions began to be raised. R&R's vice president, Angelina Masini, first noticed tens of thousands of dollars in discrepancies and started digging further, a police report states, finding Littlemore gave himself at least $67,500 in bonuses and paid several other employees $1,000 bonuses.
Littlemore charged R&R for at least $1,350 in car expenses, $27,500 in housing for himself and his family, nearly $27,000 in insurance premiums and thousands more in subscriptions, meals, travel and ancestry testing, among other items, the company alleged.
Meanwhile, R&R Industries human resources director told police Littlemore's employee file "mysteriously vanished" during his time there.
The discoveries eventually led R&R to file a complaint with Holly Hill police, who arrested Littlemore on April 5 at his new job as CFO for SCCY Industries, a firearms manufacturer in Daytona Beach.
When reached by phone recently, a person at SCCY said Littlemore no longer works there.
According to a resume Beasely said he was provided by Littlemore, after working at FONA, Littlemore claims to have been employed as the chief financial officer for PinnacleHealth System and as finance director for a company called TE. It also states he has worked as a treasury manager for Apollo Group, a finance analyst at Bank of Scotland and a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley.
Detailed information from those experiences on the resume was sparse, leaving dates, but no explicit description of what he accomplished, supervisor contact information or cities where he was based, despite the fact that most are multinational, multimillion dollar corporations.
All told, Beasley told police that Littlemore was responsible for a $150,000 loss at R&R and said if the Kane County state's attorney had prosecuted Littlemore in 2014, R&R might have avoided problems. Citing pending litigation, he would not comment further, except to say he doesn't want this to happen to anyone else.
Not guilty plea
Littlemore was released on $150,000 bail and is facing a charge of grand theft of more than $100,000. His attorney, Delgado, filed paperwork indicating he's pleading not guilty.
In an interview, Delgado gave an indication of where the defense will be going with its case.
"The fact that work was ultimately not done doesn't make it grand theft. The only way to show malice is to prove that the person never intended to begin the work," Delgado said. "If there's a misunderstanding or disagreement about what a contract means, it shouldn't implement the government, the police and all of that. It should be dealt with under civil rules."
Delgado said he couldn't really comment on the facts involved, citing the criminal aspect of the case, but said his firm would provide a "vigorous defense."
And in reference to the settled Illinois lawsuit, Delgado said it never went to trial. "There was no criminal conduct. It was a civil case only," the attorney said.