The man charged with defrauding the city of Tallahassee of more than $2 million doesn’t exactly fit the stereotypical profile of an international cyber criminal.
Richard N. Golding was arrested on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, grand theft and attempted grand theft in connection with the heist of $2.35 million city funds. Police and prosecutors celebrated the arrest and recovery of $1.4 million of the stolen money, though they acknowledged roughly $900,000 was still gone.
Golding is an 83-year-old bankruptcy attorney who resides in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, an affluent suburb outside Chicago, where The Golding Law Offices, P.C., is located.
“Our small, family-owned law firm takes great pride in treating clients like family and helping them get the fresh start they deserve,” his firm’s website says. “We give each case the attention and personalized care it deserves while keeping you informed so you never feel left in the dark about the next step in your case.”
A woman who answered a reporter’s phone call to Golding on the morning of Jan. 23 said he wasn’t home. When the reporter asked about reaching Golding to discuss the allegations, she said “lots of luck” and hung up.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Chicago later confirmed that Golding was booked into the Cook County Jail on Jan. 23. He was still in custody as of early evening.
Golding earned a law degree from the Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1967 and was admitted to practice in Illinois state court and U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois.
The Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission website says Golding was suspended in 2004 for a year after pleading guilty to a federal charge of contempt of court.
The agency said he conducted auctions related to two bankruptcy matters and collected the money but didn’t remit them in a timely fashion and improperly took compensation without prior authorization of the court.
Public records show he has a history of state and federal tax liens, some for six figures and many of them since released.
The Tallahassee Police Department announced his arrest Jan. 23, saying he “unlawfully and willingly participated” in the receipt of $2.35 million in stolen funds and facilitated their transfer to a Mexican bank for a criminal network that remains unidentified.
Chief Lawrence Revell said the department has handled big fraud cases before, including a multi-million dollar auto parts theft ring in the city’s fleet department more than two decades ago. But he said the recent fraud investigation was a bit unusual.
“The complexities of it, the overseas connections — it’s not the first time we’ve ever worked it, but it’s probably the first one we’ve worked in a quite a while and certainly to this magnitude,” he told the Democrat in an interview. “I can’t speak enough about the expertise of our detectives and what a phenomenal job they did putting all these pieces together and making sure it was a rock solid case.”
The theft of such a large amount of public dollars became a focus of community fascination and suspicion, with questions popping up in City Commission meetings and a recent press conference outside City Hall.
State Attorney Jack Campbell, who has been working on the case for months, said law enforcement couldn’t say much until an arrest was made: “We’re chasing both international banks and internet (criminals),” he said. “That’s why it takes so long.”
‘Very hard to untangle’
In March 2024, city officials reported the theft of more than a million dollars to the Police Department by a cyber scammer posing as a city vendor. The city announced it was working with the U.S. Secret Service to investigate the stolen funds and recover the money.
Campbell said the money was stolen in a spear-phishing attack, in which a single person or organization is targeted by criminals posing as someone else, in this case a major city vendor.
The participants in the scam contacted the city and had an employee change the bank routing of the vendor to Golding’s account, which began receiving large payments from the city.
“He would get these huge drafts of money from the city of Tallahassee and then wire it to these international thieves,” he said. “That’s the difficulty of the case that’s been so hard.”
Campbell praised the TPD detective who worked the case and was able to save $1.4 million of the stolen money while it was still in transit.
“That was a huge save,” he said. “But we still have a lot of money out there. This went all the way around the world, like Africa, Asia. How it bounces around the world, the way that modern banking works, is very hard to untangle.”
Court records with more details about the scam have not yet been released. However, Campbell confirmed that state charges will be filed against him in Leon County.
“He will definitely have to come to Tallahassee to face these charges,” Revell added.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Man charged in $2.35M city cyber scam is 83-year-old Chicago attorney
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
