Tigra USA, a manufacturer of specialty manufacturing tools in Hickory, NC, could be seen as an enlightened company that was unafraid to give a chance to a qualified woman to serve as its CEO. Her name was Donna Osowitt Steele, and she had worked at Tigra for more than two decades (1999 – 2020).
Tigra US could also be seen as a company of suckers, duped by their CEO because no one was watching, and no one expected that her insatiable need for the finer things in life could lead to massive embezzlement.
As a business ethics keynote speaker, business ethics consultant and ethics book author, Donna Osowitt Steele does not surprise me, for the elements of fraud were all in place.
Eight years in jail
Unless she receives time-off for good behavior, Steele will not emerge from prison until she is well-past 61. She will, of course, lose friends, status and her career. She will lose every penny she embezzled, and that amounts to more than $17 million as she agreed to liquidate everything, she owns to satisfy the government.
In her commission of crime, which includes over a half-million in jewelry purchases, stays at luxury hotels, reportedly more than $1 million in travel, and other personal indulgences and presents.
According to the Charlotte Observer, “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.”
Steele believed, as most fraudsters believe, that she was clever to the point of being the brightest person in the room.
In order to accomplish her fraud, she allegedly told employees “the owners were to be feared and they should be scared to communicate with them and/or should be careful around them.”
She was, after all, the CEO and she frightened subordinates even when they spotted inappropriate purchases such as diamonds or trips having nothing to do with the running of the company. Though the company was profitable on the surface, they couldn’t pay their vendors because Steele had been draining money. This spilled over onto employees who couldn’t be paid and naturally, they started to lose benefits such as insurance. Of course, company credit cards were cancelled.
I only care about me
Many fraudsters are driven by an intense need for money or power or social status. The reports were that Steele spent something like $200,000 on wedding gifts and such. She was a big shot to herself and to her friends and family. In that context, she put every worker in her company in jeopardy because they had no insurance. She cared only about her needs. To make matters worse, she infused her co-workers with the unfounded fear that somehow, the executives of the parent company were not to be trusted and out to get them. It was almost a projection of herself.
How could she rationalize her behavior? Frankly, I don’t think she cared. I don’t believe she thought that deeply or that anything mattered except her next “fix,” her next indulgence.
After 20 years with the same organization, Donna Osowitt Steele had become a familiar fixture. She was seen as loyal and dependable. She was instead, the opposite. She fed off of the naivete of others; she took without caring who she would ultimately hurt.
Business ethics must be taught and it must be reinforced. Systems must be in place to ensure a sense of compliance and responsibility. Donna Osowitt Steele will have many years to contemplate her downfall. Her jail cell will serve in harsh contrast to the luxury hotels she once enjoyed. She will be stripped of the fake trappings of wealth and she will have to deal with the reality of bad choices.
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