A tech CEO who lied to investors to get funding and then blew millions of it on maintaining a luxury lifestyle, which included private jets and top seats at sporting events, has been sentenced to just over eight years in prison.
Daniel Boice, 41, set up what he claimed would be the “Uber of private investigators,” called Trustify, in 2015. He managed to pull in over $18m in funding from a range of investors by lying about how successful the business was.
According to the criminal indictment [PDF] against him, investors received detailed financial statements that claimed Trustify was pulling in $500,000 a month and had hundreds of business relationships that didn’t exist. Boice also emailed, called, and texted potential investors claiming the same. But, prosecutors say, the truth was that the biz was making “significantly less” and the documentation was all fake.
The tech upstart started to collapse in November 2018 when losses mounted to the point where Boice was unable to pay his staff. When they complained, he grew angry, fired them, and cut off all company email and instant messaging accounts, they allege in a separate lawsuit [PDF] demanding unpaid wages.
Even as Trustify was being evicted from its office, however, Boice continued to lie to investors, claiming he had $18m in the bank when accounts show he had less than $10,000. Finally in 2019 the company was placed into corporate receivership, leading to over $18m in losses to investors and over $250,000 in unpaid wages.
As well as creating false income and revenue documents, Boice was found to have faked an email from one large investor saying that it was going to invest $7.5m in the business that same day – and then forwarded it to another investor as proof of interest. That investor then sank nearly $2m into the business.
Profligate
While the business was failing, however, Boice used millions invested in it to fund his own lifestyle. He put down deposits on two homes in the US – a $1.6m house in Virginia and a $1m beach house in New Jersey – using company funds. He also paid for a chauffeur, house manager, and numerous other personal expenses with Trustify cash. More money was spent on holidays, a $83,000 private jet flight to Vermont, and over $100,000 was spent on seats at various sporting events. His former employees also allege in a separate lawsuit that he spent $600,000 on a documentary about him and his wife.
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