Ohio Man Sentenced to Prison for Using Company Funds for Personal Use

TOLEDO, Ohio - A Wood County man has been sentenced to prison for defrauding a computer technology support company of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Blake Underwood, 45, of Perrysburg, Ohio, was sentenced to 24 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary after pleading guilty in May to wire fraud. Underwood was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release after imprisonment.

According to court documents and evidence presented in court, Underwood was employed by Nemsys, LLC, a Toledo-based information technology company. After the Nemsys business owners relocated to Florida to focus their efforts on a second company, Underwood became the CEO and ran the business on behalf of the owners. Court documents show that Underwood devised a scheme to defraud the company from December 2019 until April 2023. Even though he was not permitted to do so, Underwood used Nemsys funds intended for the revitalization of a historic Toledo property to purchase building supplies for his personal home. In 2023, the owners examined why Nemsys was underperforming financially and discovered that Underwood was using company funds to pay his personal credit cards, purchase personal vehicles, golf club memberships, jewelry, and more.

This investigation was conducted by the FBI Toledo Field Office prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert N. Melching for the Northern District of Ohio.