$15 million embezzlement lands former NC CEO in prison

The former CEO of a North Carolina manufacturer was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for embezzling over $15 million to fund her “extravagant lifestyle,” prosecutors said.

Donna Osowitt Steele, 53, of Taylorsville, made $500,000 in jewelry purchases and stayed at pricey New York and Hawaii hotels with money she stole from Tigra USA Inc. in Hickory, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Steele also admitted to illegally spending $1 million on travel, $200,000 on family weddings, $100,000 on flowers and $100,000 on Gucci purchases, according to documents in U.S. District Court in Statesville.

In January, Steele pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with the scheme. She previously declined comment when reached by the Observer.

After Steele’s guilty plea, Bernd Motzer, CEO and president of Tigra USA Inc., told the Observer that he was “gratified that justice is being done.“

Steele worked at the company for over two decades, from 1999 until she was fired in 2020, court records show. She was made CEO around 2015.

Tigra makes equipment for the metalworking and woodworking industries.

How the scheme unfolded

Steele used four types of financial transactions to pull off what prosecutors alleged in court documents was an “embezzlement scheme”: personal purchases on company credit cards; checks; Quickbooks transactions; and wire transfers.

She opened bank accounts and credit cards in the name of her unsuspecting company and limited…