A new criminal information was filed Tuesday in federal court against former Detroit Riverfront Conservancy Chief Financial Officer William Smith, charging him with wire fraud and money laundering.
A criminal information charge commonly suggests a plea deal is in the works. Smith's lawyer, Gerald Evelyn, could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.
Smith is expected to be arraigned Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, said Gina Balaya, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office. She said she cannot confirm whether there is a plea deal in the works and said the office will have no additional comment, adding "we're going to let the document speak for itself."
Smith was accused of wire and bank fraud in a criminal complaint filed in June. He’s been accused in an alleged scheme to siphon nearly $40 million from the nonprofit organization during an 11-year period. The conservancy is funded by public grants and private donations.
Federal prosecutors accused Smith of embezzling to support a lavish lifestyle, with spending on air travel, hotels, limos, clothes, jewelry and more, the Free Press previously reported. Allegedly stolen funds from the organization went to cover credit card charges made by him and his family members from 2012 through 2024, including a $17,500 Louis Vuitton purchase, federal investigators had said.
The new case dates the scheme from about November 2012 through about May of this year. It alleges Smith transferred conservancy funds from the organization’s Comerica Bank account to a bank account in the name of The Joseph Group & Associates LLC, a corporation owned and controlled by Smith.
The corporation was not an approved vendor for the conservancy, and it provided no services to the organization, according to the new filing.
It states Smith “routinely and without authorization” transferred the funds, which he then transferred to accounts held by other entities he owned and controlled, including First Round Management LLC. The criminal information states he used the embezzled funds to buy real estate and support his personal and business interests.
It alleges Smith used conservancy funds to pay off American Express charges he and his family incurred, typically by initiating wire transfers from the conservancy’s account at Comerica Bank to American Express to pay off the credit card balances.
None of the expenditures were authorized by the conservancy, according to the new filing.
It indicates that Smith and his family incurred about $15.6 million in American Express charges between November 2012 and May 2024, and Smith used about $14.9 million in conservancy funds to pay off the charges during the same time period.
Smith is accused of buying cashier’s checks from various financial institutions, purchases that were not authorized, and using the cashier’s checks for his own purposes without the knowledge or approval of the conservancy’s board of directors.
The filing states Smith “covered up and sustained his fraudulent scheme by falsifying bank statements that he provided to the Conservancy’s bookkeeper, altering or deleting unauthorized transfers on the statements in order to keep them off of the Conservancy’s books.”
It adds that Smith covered up and sustained his alleged scheme by taking out a line of credit with Citizen’s Bank on behalf of the conservancy, claiming to be acting with the authorization of the group’s board of directors “but, in fact, he had no such authority.” He is accused of using the funds from this line of credit, which eventually totaled $5 million, to infuse monies into the conservancy’s bank accounts to help cover up his embezzlement.
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For the laundering charge, Smith is accused of initiating the transfer of $65,000 in funds embezzled from the conservancy from a bank account held by The Joseph Group & Associates LLC to an account held by First Round Management LLC on or about Sept. 24, 2021.
In a prior, separate federal civil forfeiture matter against Smith, up to $3.9 million of his assets were frozen, though a judge previously granted him a monthly allowance of up to $3,421 from a rental property he owns.
The conservancy also filed a civil lawsuit against Smith, his family members, and a friend in July in Wayne County Circuit Court in a step to recoup some of the alleged millions he is accused of embezzling.
(This story was updated to meet Free Press standards.)
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Feds file new case against former Detroit Riverfront Conservancy CFO William Smith
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