Fashion mogul and Project Runway judge 'googled how to commit fraud to pull off $300M scheme'
Christine Hunsicker, 48, of Lafayette, New Jersey, is charged with six counts, including fraud, aggravated identity theft and false statement charge.
Prosecutors say she forged documents and misrepresented her company's financial condition to defraud investors in her companies CaaStle Inc. and P180.
Hunsicker created several fake audits for investors that showed the company had significantly more money available than it did, according to prosecutors.
She was eventually confronted by another investor in October 2024 but feigned innocence, the indictment said.
However immediately after the investor left, she googled 'faking an audit', according to the complaint.
Her lawyers said that the indictment was a 'distorted picture' which they are keen to challenge in court.
Before the fraud allegations emerged, Hunsicker seemed to be a rising star in the fashion world after she was named to Crain's New York Business '40 under 40' list.
She was selected as one of Inc.'s Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs and was recognized by the National Retail Federation as someone shaping the future of retail, the indictment noted.
She also appeared as a judge on Project Runway in 2016 and has been pictured posing alongside Bill and Hillary Clinton.
It is a far cry from the salacious allegations which appear in the indictment which narrates how she allegedly tried to cover up her tracks.
Hunsicker created fake audits that showed CaaStle had $50million in cash available, when in reality it had less than $1million in August 2023, the indictment states.
She also told investors that the shares they were buying were from other shareholders who were liquidating their assets, when in fact, those people didn't exist, the indictment said.
She told them the shareholders were liquidating their assets due to a 'family health emergency' or do to the FTX collapse, which saw founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for also scamming his investors.
'To maintain the fiction, after facilitating the supposed secondary sales, HUNSICKER issued fake capitalization tables to the investors to demonstrate that they had purchased existing CaaStle shares,' the indictment, unsealed on Friday, said.
The indictment said she portrayed CaaStle as a high-growth, private company with substantial cash on hand when she knew it faced significant financial distress.
Hunsicker allegedly continued her fraudulent scheme even after the CaaStle board of directors removed her and prohibited her from soliciting investments or taking other actions on the company's behalf, the indictment said.
She 'persisted in her scheme' even after law enforcement agents confronted her over the fraud, the indictment said.
At a time when the business was in financial distress with limited cash available and significant expenses, CaaStle was valued by Hunsicker at $1.4billion, the indictment said.
Hunsicker was lying to investors in February 2019 and continued to do so through this March, prosecutors alleged.
She allegedly told one investor in August 2023 that CaaStle reported an operating profit of nearly $24million in the second quarter of 2023 when its operating profit that quarter was actually less than $30,000.
The indictment alleged that she carried out the majority of the fraud by bilking CaaStle investors of $275million before forming P180 last year to infuse CaaStle with cash before its investors could discover her fraud.
Through misrepresentations and omissions, she cheated P180 investors out of about $30million, the indictment said.
It said CaaStle filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, leaving hundreds of investors holding now-worthless CaaStle shares.
She self-surrendered on Friday and she faces up to 50 years in prison.
Defense Lawyers Michael Levy and Anna Skotko said in a statement that prosecutors, 'have chosen to present to the public an incomplete and very distorted picture in today's indictment.'
They added this is despite Hunsicker's efforts to be, 'fully cooperative and transparent' with prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
'There is much more to this story, and we look forward to telling it,' they said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Morgan Wallen calls out 'side chicks' in concert audience after Coldplay kiss cam CEO chaos
Morgan Wallen took a cheeky dig at audience members with 'side chicks' during his latest show - days after a CEO was infamously caught cozying up to his female colleague on a Coldplay concert kiss cam. Andrew Byron, the head of the billion-dollar AI startup Astronomer, was broadcast on the big screen at Boston's Gillette Stadium with his arm around the company's HR chief Kristin Cabot during Coldplay's gig there Tuesday night. They rapidly covered their faces, with Byron diving out of view and Cabot turning her back to the camera, but their reaction caught the attention of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who joked: ' Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy.' The clip went instantly viral and Byron was placed on leave this Friday before the company announced his resignation on Saturday. Public records suggest both Byron, 50, and Cabot, 56, are married - but that they live at different addresses to each of their spouses' registered abodes. As the awkward moment exploded across the internet, Wallen, 32, appeared to make a sly reference to it at his own Friday night show in Glendale, Arizona. 'Anybody in here with their side chick or whatever, I think you're safe here,' he said in fan footage posted to TikTok, before quipping: 'I don't condone cheating…anymore.' The next morning, Astronomer issued a statement announcing that Byron had resigned from the billion-dollar company. 'As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,' the statement said. 'Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted.' Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy will stay on as interim CEO. 'While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not. We're continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.' Byron and Cabot were caught red-faced as the kiss-cam at a Coldplay concert in Boston panned to the CEO with his arms wrapped his subordinate on Tuesday. The pair immediately ducked and turned from the cameras after realizing their faces were on the big screen. Astronomer announced the CEO's resignation on Saturday following an internal investigation that put Byron and Cabot on leave on Friday Astronomer acknowledge the awkward situation in the statement announcing Byron's resignation. 'Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,' the statement read. 'While awareness of our company may have changed over night our product and our work for our customers have not'. The couple have gained infamy since the moment went viral. At the time Coldplay front man Chris Martin, cracked a joke which stirred rumors over the couple's awkward reaction. 'Oh look at these two! Oh what? Either they're having an affair, or they're just very shy,' Martin said to the crowd. Public records suggest both Byron and Cabot are married - but that they live at different addresses to those listed as their spouses. Speculation of the suspected affair became the talk of the internet, and Daily Mail confirmed that Cabot is in fact currently married to another CEO. Massachusetts property documents dated in January confirmed that Cabot is currently married to Andrew Cabot, the chief executive of Privateer Rum, a Massachusetts-based booze maker. It is unclear exactly when the pair tied the knot, but the documents confirm that Cabot, whose maiden name is Stanek, was married at the time of selling a $1.8m property in Watertown, Mass, earlier this year. Privateer Rum's website lists Andrew Cabot as its CEO and COO of the company, and public documents show that he has been married at least twice before, in 1993 and 2014. He shares two children with his first wife Maud, who shared a picture of her ex-husband with Cabot looking loved up at his daughters 25th birthday party on social media in April of last year. Cabot even posed with his son Henry, 30, in the snaps, and was seen wearing a wedding ring at the event - which was missing during her cozy Coldplay date with Byron. Byron is also married, with his wife Megan Byron, removing his last name from her social media accounts shortly after the exchange with Chris Martin went viral. It comes after AI-tech start-up Astronomer said they have launched a formal investigation into the moment of intimacy. 'Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability,' they said in a statement. 'The Board of Directors has initiated a formal investigation into this matter and we will have additional details to share very shortly.' When Cabot joined the firm as HR boss in November 2024, Byron heaped praise on her, saying she would be a 'perfect fit' at his company. 'Kristin's exceptional leadership and deep expertise in talent management, employee engagement, and scaling people strategies will be critical as we continue our rapid trajectory,' he said in a press release at the time. 'She is a proven leader at multiple growth-stage companies and her passion for fostering diverse, collaborative workplaces makes her a perfect fit for Astronomer.' Byron's firm is valued at over $1 billion, with the company experiencing rapid growth since he became CEO in 2023.
Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
The weirdo on a true crime Facebook page was suspiciously well informed about the savage slaughter. As his posts grew darker, a police chief noticed... and saw the truth: JAMES PATTERSON's forensic account of the Idaho murders
Panic sweeps the small American town of Moscow and the campus of the University of Idaho in mid-November 2022 as word spreads that four students have been found dead in their beds, brutally and mercilessly stabbed in a rental house on King Road. Everywhere, phones are pinging with a warning from the university authorities: 'Police investigating homicide. Suspect is not known at this time. Stay away from the area and shelter in place.' Overhead, helicopters are hovering; sniffer dogs roam the campus.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Caitlin Clark and WNBA stars make stunning protest against their pay before All-Star game
Caitlin Clark and her fellow WNBA players wore T-shirts telling league bosses to 'pay us what you owe us' as talks over a new collective bargaining agreement stalled during All-Star week. Negotiations have been ongoing between the WNBA and Women's National Basketball Players Association during All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis but they have failed to reach a deal and erase the friction between the two sides. In fact, many WNBA players were disappointed in the lack of progress of an in- person session conducted Thursday. The negotiations certainly didn't narrow the gap between the two sides. 'I think (Thursday's) meeting was good for the fact that we could be in the same room as the league and the Board of Governors,' said Liberty star Breanna Stewart, a union vice president. 'But, I think, to be frank, it was a wasted opportunity.' The dispute began when the players union announced after the 2024 season that they would opt out of the CBA on Oct. 31, 2025. With television revenues on the rise - largely due to the presence of Clark - the players want a larger piece of the financial pie. 'Rev sharing is truly transformational,' Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum told reporters. 'We want a piece of the entire pie. Not a piece of part of the pie. We're a resilient group. We know the unity it takes to be able to get the outcome desired.' Chicago Sky second-year forward Angel Reese termed the negotiations as 'disrespectful.' 'Obviously, women's basketball is skyrocketing,' Reese told reporters. 'And it's important for us to get what we want now, not just now, but for the future as well. ... 'It was an eye-opener for me ... hearing the language of things, not things that I was happy to hear. It was disrespectful -- the proposal that we were sent back.' The deadline to reach a new agreement is just three-and-a-half months away. 'We're on a time crunch. No one wants a lockout,' said Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, another vice president of the WNBPA. 'But at the end of the day, we have to stand firm, and we're not going to be moved on certain topics. So hopefully the league comes back quickly so that we can get have more dialog, more conversations and can get the ball rolling.' Collier and Stewart were co-founders of Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league that debuted last offseason. The fact that both players are part of the WNBPA negotiating party while having significant financial investments in a rival league would appear to be a conflict of interest, though Collier has fought back against that narrative. That also is part of the discussions as the WNBA wants its league to be prioritized among the players, some of whom play overseas. Players point out that Unrivaled's pay scale was better for most players than what they receive in WNBA salary. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert described the negotiations as 'very constructive dialog.' Engelbert said she remains optimistic that a deal with get done. More to follow.
