Prosecutor: Treasurer took cruises after theft of $300,000 from Kentucky arts groups
A man who admitted stealing more than $300,000 from two arts organizations in Southern Kentucky has been sentenced to two years and three months in prison.
The sentence for Charles Davis includes an order to pay $352,336 in restitution to the two organizations.
Davis, 57, was treasurer for ArtWorks Community Arts Education Center in Jamestown and for the Russell County Arts Council when he stole the money beginning in 2017, according to the court record.
It appears Davis left the county after the thefts were discovered in December 2020, and later bought an expensive truck and travel trailer and went on four Caribbean cruises in 2021 and 2022 to Mexico, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Madison T. Sewell, said in a sentencing memorandum.
The FBI arrested Davis in December 2022 as he disembarked from a Carnival cruise ship, according to the memo.
Davis pleaded guilty to two charges of wire fraud.
Davis’ court-appointed attorney, Patrick J. Bouldin, said in a memo that Davis now lives in Nashville and works in internet technology for a healthcare company, making more than $100,000 a year.
Bouldin asked U.S. District Judge Greg N. Stivers to place Davis on probation for five years, citing among other things that Davis would be better able to pay restitution if he could keep his job.
However, Sewell pushed for prison time for Davis, saying he had shown no remorse and made no effort to repay the thefts despite his six-figure salary.
The prosecutor cited a ruling that said when someone trusts another person to act in their interest, taking advantage of that trust “is particularly abhorrent, as it undermines faith in one’s fellow man in a way that the ordinary pick-pocket simply cannot.”
The 27-month sentence was the maximum under advisory federal guidelines.
