Man charged with embezzling $5.5 million, a record in Wake, goes to trial
.jpeg "Hugh Franklin Johnson II")
Prosecutors will start the largest embezzlement trial in Wake County history Monday, asking jurors to convict Hugh Johnson II of taking $5.5 million with a company credit card and funding a lavish lifestyle.
Johnson, 44, worked as a manager at BMG LabTech in Cary, and court documents filed in 2018 accuse him of taking the money between 2012 and 2017. Search warrants filed by the State Bureau of Investigation detail “hundreds of transactions” for himself and his friends.
Among those expenses: trips to Mexico, stays at the Ritz Carlton in Florida and Trump International in New York, $145,000 at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and big donations to his church.
Johnson’s case marks the largest amount of money any trial defendant has ever been accused of taking, and it may be the largest total for any embezzlement in Wake County, including people who pleaded guilty before going to court, said District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.
“Generally speaking,” Freeman said, “in these cases you see a consistent pattern of behavior from a person in a position of trust who had sole control.”
With its headquarters in Germany, BMG LabTech makes microplate readers, which are devices using light to detect chemical, biological and physical reactions that are especially useful to the pharmaceutical industry, according to the company’s website.
Investigators with the SBI estimate Johnson made 333 unauthorized wire transfers, The News & Observer previously reported. Among his assets: three homes in Wake County and at least five luxury vehicles, court documents said.
Attempting to have his bail reduced from $1 million, Johnson told a judge last year that he was an active recruiter and fundraiser for Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Southeast Raleigh. The church later distanced itself from Johnson but called him a generous donor.
“While we are praying for and concerned for Hugh Johnson, he is not a member of the Upper Room,” the pastor, Bishop Patrick L. Wooden Sr., said in a 2018 N&O story. “He has never recruited new members or served on any board. ... He might come to church two or three Sundays in a row, but then we might not see him for a month.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2019 at 6:00 AM.