He took his employer for a ride.
A former executive at a popular exercise bike startup stole more than $400,000 from his firm and brazenly posted selfies on social media that show him living large off of his ill-gotten gains, Manhattan prosecutors say.
Lawrence White, an ex-vice president of finance at Peloton Cycle, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of grand larceny in March for using corporate credit cards and a bogus account to pay for vacations and prime seating at sporting events, according to court documents.
White’s Facebook and Instagram accounts show just how extravagant his lifestyle became with the help of Peloton, prosecutors say.
In one Facebook pic, White, 35, is relaxing in an infinity pool with the ocean behind him. In an Instagram shot, he’s showing off his skis on a slope in Park City, Utah. And in another, he’s mugging for the camera with a beautiful brunette in front of a London phone booth with Big Ben in the background.
There’s also a photo of him wearing sunglasses and holding a margarita. The photo caption reads, “Me? I’m doing just fine.”
But he wasn’t doing so well when he was arrested at his Greenwich Village apartment in the early hours of March 23.
“Oh, s—. Oh, God,” he said to investigators before asking them to hold off on handcuffing him as they marched him out of his building, according to court documents.
An hour later, at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the clueless exec asked investigators how bad the situation was.
“Is this the kind of crime that if I get asked if I’ve ever committed a crime, that I have to mention?” he asked, according to the documents.
He also told investigators that he was not a criminal but “a regular kid from Queens.
“I was able to get myself out of Queens and I’m making a lot of money,” he said. “Why would I need to steal any money? This is all a big misunderstanding.”
The district attorney’s office filed civil forfeiture papers May 16 to claw back the money from White. The DA’s office included White’s social media pictures as part of the filing.
“(The) investigation revealed numerous postings on his Facebook and Instagram accounts in which he flaunts the lavish lifestyle that he bankrolled with Peloton’s money,” prosecutor Jonathan Chananie said in the forfeiture papers.
Prosecutors also submitted selfies of White with his buddy standing field level at a Giants football game. Another showed him in front of a private jet. Another one showed him at a fancy restaurant with a group of friends.
The forfeiture papers also asked the court to temporarily freeze White’s accounts so he couldn’t hide or squander any more cash.
“There is no reason to believe that (White’s) arrest has moderated his taste for pricey self-indulgence (if anything, a looming conviction may have incentivized him to binge on such extravagances while he still can),” Behzad Ahdout, a senior investigator for the DA’s office, said in the forfeiture papers.
A Manhattan College graduate, White started working at Peloton in February 2015. The company sells high-end stationary bikes that allow cyclists to take spin classes in the comfort of their own homes.
White told investigators that Peloton hired him because of his track record at other startups.
“I have a good reputation. I made a ton of money with them,” he said, according to court records.
But prosecutors say White started scamming Peloton shortly after he was hired.
Just a month into the job, he began using an American Express corporate card and a Peloton-issued MasterCard to make unauthorized purchases, including a $2,600 meal at Midtown restaurant Pennsylvania 6 and a $4,210 trip to a Nevada resort, prosecutors say. He also spent hundreds of dollars getting his hair cut at the Drawing Room salon in SoHo.
In all, he charged more than $56,843 in personal expenses to the two cards in 2015 and 2016, according to court papers.
The exercise bike honcho switched gears in July 2015 — by opening a new AmEx account in Peloton’s name. He then racked up $293,552 in personal charges, including airfare and lodging to the Bahamas and New Orleans, prosecutors say.
White also created a bogus vendor named “Kinetic Ventures” and had Peloton write checks to it totaling $45,600. The money really went into White’s personal checking account, prosecutors say.
In all he took $402,102 from Peloton, according to prosecutors.
White was let go in July 2016. He told investigators that Peloton’s chief financial officer got rid of him.
“Maybe I offended her with something I said once. It wasn’t a vendetta, but obviously, she had a goal,” White said, according to court documents.
After his departure, Peloton audited his accounts.
He insisted to investigators he didn’t do anything wrong — and even used Peloton as a reference for another job.
“I made them a lot of money,” he said. “I was with Peloton from the beginning and we built it up.”
White, who told investigators that he was unemployed, was released on bail a week after his arrest.
His lawyer, Robert Georges, told the Daily News that his client denies the allegations.
“There’s a lot more to this story than what’s in the indictment,” Georges said. “And as the pictures on social media show, some of the funds were used to promote the company itself.”
