Worker embezzled from NC tribe to buy Derek Jeter collage and belt buckles, feds say

About $200,000 siphoned from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was used in part to pay for commemorative sports memorabilia from Florida, according to federal prosecutors.

Now the 41-year-old man accused of making the purchases is going to prison.

Fredrick Thomas Gettins Strohm was sentenced to a year and a half in prison on Thursday after he pleaded guilty last year to embezzling from an Indian tribal organization, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina said in a news release. A federal judge also ordered him to pay the tribe $199,077 in restitution and serve an additional three years of supervised release.

A defense attorney representing Strohm did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Thursday.

According to a bill of information filed by prosecutors, Strohm lives in Jackson County and was the office manager at the internet service provider Cherokee Broadband Enterprises.

Jackson County in southwest North Carolina is one of five counties that encompass parts of the Qualla Boundary, the 100-square-mile reservation belonging to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Strohm reportedly had access to Cherokee Broadband’s bank accounts and credit cards through his job, which he was allowed to use on business-related expenses.

But from 2014 to 2018, prosecutors said he used that access to embezzle money for personal expenses and “large cash withdrawals.” According to court documents, those personal expenses included:

▪ $300 worth of belts and belt buckles from Amazon, including a decorative Florida State Seminoles belt buckle

▪ a miniature helmet display collection from the sports apparel store Fanatics.com

▪ More than $57,000 in credit card bills

▪ Two customized Jacksonville Jaguars jerseys with his name on the back costing $300 each

▪ a Derek Jeter collage

▪ $119 on LED fog lights for his Dodge Challenger

▪ Nearly $135 on vape products

Strohm hid the purchases by altering bank statements and deleting QuickBooks files in the computer system, prosecutors said.

Investigators later uncovered the deleted files, and Strohm was charged by criminal information on June 2. He pleaded guilty the same day, court documents show.

Strohm had asked the judge for a prison sentence below the recommended guidelines, citing in-part his “slowly dissolving” marriage during the time of the alleged embezzlement, which his defense attorney said “contributed to his poor decision making.” He was seeking a probationary sentence or a period of home confinement as a result.

In letters to the judge, friends and family members called Strohm “a devoted and loving father.”

“Your Honor, I do not know the man who stands accused of the crimes committed, such behavior is very contrast to the man I have come to know, and the man standing before you certainly seems to no longer be that individual,” one friend wrote.

Strohm’s father said the family was briefly “screened out of his life” while he was married to his now ex-wife, writing “Rick thought they had solvable marital problems, until she came home with a pentagram tattooed on her hand and Freddy Krueger tattooed down her side.”

He said the family is now a strong source of support and are committed to “never again be a defendant in a courtroom.”