L J Soldinger Associates Exposes Massive Fraud in Forensic Accounting Engagement

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel Published 8:00 a.m. ET April 12, 2019. 

To read the full article, click here.

Founder and CEO of Provectus Biopharmaceuticals, Harry Craig Dees plundered $3.2 million from the Knoxville cancer drug development company he founded in 2002 to pay for sex, booze and gifts of plastic surgery, jewelry, cars and beach trips for more than 50 call girls, prosecutors say.

And then he vanished. Virginia Godfrey, Dees’ wife of 37 years says she has no idea where he is, and that he left her to shoulder the fallout from his secret life. Three years later, Dees is still missing, and so is the more than $2 million he owes Provectus stockholders for paying himself stock option bonuses he didn’t earn and the more than $3.2 million in cash advances he siphoned from the firm in just four years.

The tale of the Knoxville scientist who wanted to cure cancer and instead used investor money to pay for breast augmentation for call girls is detailed in stacks of depositions and court records generated in the three years since he vanished.

Larry Soldinger, a Chicago accountant, has since gone trekking through Dees’ financial records dating back to 2012, two years before Dees promised to repay shareholders $2.4 million in stock options. He described what he saw in a deposition.

“Most of the money that went in over the period from 2012 through 2015, we found roughly $3.2 million in checks that were of a nature totally unrelated to travel expense,” Soldinger said. “Quite a bit of the rest of the money went to women…over 50 women on the list of checks.

“In addition to that there are other checks written for hospitals, for car dealers. And we found in the notation there are names of women,” the accountant continued.

“We did find quite a bit was being spent for plastic surgeons … $147,000 in plastic surgery. We found quite a bit of tips charged on his American Express at various bars and places he went to. The amount of tips alone were $345,000.”

Hooter’s, Soldinger said, was a favorite of Dees, as were the waitresses, many of whom wound up as dates for Dees.

Soldinger said Dees spent Provectus money on at least sixteen flights to Fort Myers, Florida, often accompanied by one of the women. He bought cars and jewelry for the women, all using Provectus money.

 “We did try to find a number of these women through the internet,” Soldinger said. “And we did find a number of them had pages. Some were models. Some were servers at Hooters. Some were on sites where we could only get to a certain point and we would make an introduction of ourselves to get a little bit further, which we didn’t do. Some we did find mug shots of.”

Provectus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

L J SOLDINGER RANKED 15TH IN THE WORLD iN 2018 ON NEW SEC AUDIT CLIENTS BY MARKET CAPITALIZATION

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Data for the rankings are provided by Audit Analytics, a premium online intelligence service delivering audit, regulatory and disclosure analysis. Reach them at (508) 476-7007, [email protected] or www.auditanalytics.com.

L J SOLDINGER  RANKED 27TH IN THE WORLD ON NET NEW SEC ENGAGEMENT AUDIT CLIENTS        

OVERALL NET ENGAGEMENT LEADERS ~ 2018

Ranked by net engagements; ties are broken by the number of new engagements, then by alphabetical order. † New engagements include significant gains from the same previous auditor, often an indication of a merger or other change in firm structure, or that some of the new engagements have a corporate affiliation, as with Plante Moran’s merger with Denver-based Top 100 Firm EKS&H.

LJ Soldinger ranked #6 in the World for 2018 Q3 SEC Market Cap Audit Engagements

accountingtoday.com
By  Daniel Hood

Published October 22, 2018

​Data for the quarterly rankings are provided by Audit Analytics.

LJ Soldinger ranked #16 in the World for 2018 Q3 Net Engagement Leaders

Ranked by net engagements; ties are broken by lower number of new engagements, then by alphabetical order.

accountingtoday.com
By  Daniel Hood

Published October 22, 2018.

    Worldwide Audit Leaders for New SEC Audit Clients 2017