The news is out: [Craig Harbaugh made a convincing case while seeking loans and investments in his firearms company, Tactical Solutions Gear LLC.
The Fremont, Neb., man rattled off law enforcement agencies in states from Alaska to Tennessee as clients. He had the contracts and purchase orders to back up his claims. And, in a detail that reportedly resonated with at least one investor, he himself worked as a Dodge County sheriff’s deputy.
But Harbaugh, 50, admitted this week that none of the 12 agencies he named was actually doing business with him: He had falsified the documents. It was, he acknowledged in a guilty plea filed in Nebraska federal court, “effectively a Ponzi scheme.”
In what the Omaha World-Herald described as potentially “one of the largest individual embezzlements in Nebraska history,” Harbaugh’s ploy bilked nearly $11 million from a bank and four investors.
The now-former deputy could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He faces up to 20 years in prison at his May sentencing.]
Little boy blue; he needed the money.