Posted on 07/25/2002 9:52:59 AM PDT by FourPeas
Now Michael Reid Webb's one-time partners at Kraft Container Corp. want to know what he did with the money.
Webb, who offered "simple deceit" as an explanation for the disappearing money, claims it was given to charity.
Wearing a jail uniform, Webb looked down as he was arraigned Tuesday on three counts of embezzlement over $20,000, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Family members sat in the rear of the courtroom.
Webb interrupted District Court Judge Sara Smolenski as she read conditions of a $30,000 bond for each count. "You don't have to bother, because I can't afford it," he told Smolenski.
Kraft Container Corp., which once had 130 employees and sales of $20 million, closed in October. Webb's partners now blame the alleged embezzlement for its downfall, according to Kraft Container attorney Mark Pendery. A default judgment for $3.5 million was entered against Webb in February in a civil suit.
Webb, 54, of Sparta, was arrested last week in Indiana, where he was living with his brother and working at a business that makes signs.
Kent County sheriff's deputies began investigating Webb for embezzlement in March, said Detective Gregory Parolini.
Questions about his handling of finances arose when former business partners at Kraft Container Corp. were in the process of selling the firm to Shoreline Containers in Holland.
Detectives say Webb wrote hundreds of checks to himself. "Over just 1999 and 2000 alone, there was no less than $1.2 million of checks written to himself from the company's expense account," Parolini said.
Webb's former partners, who used their retirement funds in hopes of saving the failing company, "felt a sense of overwhelming betrayal," Parolini said.
Kraft Container's factory on Kraft Avenue SE made several products, including boxes and folding cartons, for the automotive, office furniture and food industries.
The partners worked at Grand Rapids Packaging until it went out of business in 1981, then opted to go into business for themselves.
In a the file of a civil suit in Kent County Circuit Court, a typewritten letter bearing Webb's name asks for forgiveness from his former partners.
"I suppose I could give all kind of excuses or reasons to explain what I did, but in the end it all just boils down to simple deceit," the letter states.
"I could have had the courage to do the right thing and stay honest, but I chose the wrong path and instead betrayed the trust and friendship that you had given me in 25 years."
But the former partners -- two of whom went bankrupt -- are angry and want Webb to serve prison time, Pendery said.
"We're told that he took about 50 people to Hawaii and paid for everything including plane fare for all of them," Pendery said. "He told me that he spent the money. He told detectives that he gave it to charity. But he couldn't provide documents."
Webb's family declined comment.
Webb, the former owner of the Berkey and Gay building on Monroe Avenue NW, has had his hand in numerous businesses in the Grand Rapids area since 1989, including the Charlevoix Club, Southside Ice Arena and Riverfront Fitness Center. He has also worked in amateur hockey and with charity basketball tournaments.
More acurately: Another greedy capitalist criminal bites the dust.
Some capitalists may also be criminals but most capitalists aren't (except in the eyes of liberals).
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