ASHEVILLE, N.C. – A Catawba County bookkeeper was sentenced to prison on Thursday for embezzling more than $1.35 from his employer, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger ordered Danny Dale Tremble, 49, of Conover to serve 41 months in prison followed by three of supervised release, and to pay restitution in the amount of $1,639,659.99.
Robert M. DeWitt, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division, and Donald “Trey” Eakins, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, Charlotte Field Office (IRS-CI), join U.S. Attorney King in making today’s announcement.
According to court documents and court proceedings, from October 2013 to December 2021, Tremble executed a scheme to embezzle and defraud his Asheville-based employer, Azalea Management and Leasing, Inc. (Azalea). Tremble worked at Azalea as an accountant, and in that capacity had access to the company’s bank accounts and accounting records. Over the course of the scheme, Tremble routinely misused his access to Azalea’s bank accounts to embezzle company funds, which he used to pay off personal credit cards and to cover personal expenditures including lavish hotel stays, dining, and shopping. Tremble also used stolen company funds to purchase a camper, a boat, a trailer, a pickup truck, and to buy multiple firearms.
Court documents show that Tremble failed to report any of the embezzled income on his Joint Individual Income Tax Returns, Forms 1040, amounting to a federal tax loss of $288,716.
On February 13, 2023, Tremble pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing a false tax return. He is currently released on bond and will be ordered to surrender to the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
U.S. Attorney King thanked the FBI and IRS-CI for their investigation of the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville handled the prosecution.