Tuck Beckstoffer, the former owner of the Amulet Estate, has been ordered to pay $5.1 million in damages after using company cash to buy luxury cars and planes and fix up his home.
The former owner of the Amulet Estate, formerly Tuck Beckstoffer Wines and Dancing Hares Vineyard, was forced to relinquish his shares in the company and pay a huge fine by a federal judge.
As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Beckstoffer’s business associates filed a lawsuit against him for embezzlement of company funds for personal use, including blowing up luxury cars, private planes, and semi-automatic rifles. His high-end retail therapy added to his $450,000 annual salary, according to court documents.
The court case further revealed that, on a few occasions, Beckstoffer had deliberately falsified documents to make it appear that his personal expenses were being used for the winery. For example, on a $45,560 security gate, which was actually installed at his home, not the bodega property.
Other elaborate purchases made with company money include: US$100,000 in landscaping and US$34,278 in interior design on the Beckstoffer home; $165,980 in personal travel that includes fly-fishing excursions, hunting expeditions and gun shows, and $59,003 in a family membership to the Meadowood Napa Valley luxury resort.
It is also alleged that Beckstoffer spent US$370,836 from warehouse funds “to transform a 1966 Ford pickup into a ‘heavily modified’ Baja race car” with a 900 horsepower engine.
The lawsuit also claims that the former owner of the winery stole property from the winery, including a US$60,000 worth of John Deere tractor, which was discovered when Beckstoffer posted photos on Instagram of him and his son driving the tractor around his home. .
Federal Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte ruled that Beckstoffer must walk away from his current 30% ownership in the Amulet Estate, saying his conduct was “reprehensible and warrants punitive damages.”
It added that his business partners had “proved that Mr. Beckstoffer misappropriated the Winery’s funds and assets on a consistent basis over a number of years, sometimes through elaborate fraudulent schemes and sometimes through outright theft and easily refuted lies.” ”.
Amulet Estate, in St Helena, Napa Valley, produces single-vineyard Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon priced at $175 a bottle, made with a “smooth winemaking philosophy.”
Source: news.google.com