XPost: ucb.politics.progressive, chi.general, alt.hollywood   
   XPost: ca.politics   
   From: disgusting.perverts@gladd.org   
      
   Everyone has thought about it - what to do with such a sudden   
   windfall of money. From purchasing a luxurious yacht to   
   relieving one's family of financial strain for many years to   
   come, the possibilities are endless.   
      
   Kevin Lee Co found himself with about that much money, only his   
   fortune was far from accidental.   
      
   >From about May 2008 to March 2015, he engaged in a scheme to   
   defraud almost $5 million from his employer Holt , a heavy   
   machinery company based in California. Co managed Holt's   
   accounting department and as the company's controller, Co   
   oversaw Holt's commercial credit account. Co abused that   
   authority to conduct hundreds of unauthorized credit card   
   transactions on the company's account, to manipulate and falsify   
   records regarding the credit account and to mislead the bank   
   that held the credit account when it made inquiries to Co about   
   suspicious transactions.   
      
   As part of a plea agreement Thursday, Co, 45, pleaded guilty to   
   one count of wire fraud (he was charged with eight) and one   
   count of money laundering (he was charged with three).   
      
   In total, he must pay Holt $4,542,236.08 in restitution, and he   
   potentially faces decades in prison (20 years in prison is the   
   maximum sentence for each charge, according to the plea   
   agreement documents obtained by Ars Technica.)   
      
   He has not yet been sentenced.   
      
   The amount of money he stole would change most people's lives,   
   and it seemed to have changed Co's as well. Among the things he   
   spent it on are the expected - luxury cars, season tickets to   
   see the Sacramento Kings and the San Francisco 49ers.   
      
   Some of his other extravagances included "plastic surgery   
   expenses" and a membership at the exclusive Whitney Oaks Golf   
   Club in Rocklin, California.   
      
   Easily the strangest expenditure was money spent on playing   
   "Game of War," a smartphone game that is considered a freemium   
   app - referring to a game that costs nothing to acquire but   
   requires monetary purchases in-game. In other words, if you want   
   better weaponry or some such within the game, you can purchase   
   it.   
      
   The average paying player spent $550 on the game in 2015,   
   according to VentureBeat.   
      
   Co spent approximately $1 million.   
      
   Currently, the game, which bills itself as "the world's largest   
   multiplayer strategy game" with "millions . . . battling for   
   domination," earns an estimated $1.6 million a day.   
      
   If the game sounds familiar, that is likely because it was   
   heavily promoted during the 2015 Super Bowl via commercials   
   featuring a scantily clad (if clad at all) Kate Upton.   
      
   The game has definitely sucked its players into spending gross   
   amounts of money before. That Upton-starring ad campaign cost   
   about $40 million, according to AdWeek, and it clearly worked on   
   some people.   
      
   One player who spent $9,000 on the game explained that regretful   
   expenditure in an article on Cracked.   
      
   The game eases players into spending money, starting low for   
   quick upgrades but quickly requiring more of an investment to   
   remain competitive (only after a player has invested time and   
   money into it).   
      
   As explained in Cracked, "You've gone from a game that was fun   
   to play for free to a game that's no fun to play at all unless   
   you spend to keep up. And you will spend because you've been   
   putting in 30 minutes a day for half a year to reach this point."   
      
   The piece referred to "Game of War" as "like gambling, but with   
   no possibility of winning."   
      
   http://www.sfgate.com/aboutsfgate/article/A-California-man-   
   steals-5-million-spends-1-10790647.php   
         
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)