EVANSVILLE – One of the owners of a popular Evansville social media site was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison Monday after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $87,000 from the Gibson County, Indiana, company for which he worked.

Patrick M. Garrett, 33, was accused of buying some 62 items – including a drone, a laptop and multiple small motorcycles – for himself from Amazon and other businesses. He then charged them to his employer, listed in court records only as “Business 1," without authorization, a news release from U.S. District Court states.

He was also accused of defrauding the business by billing it for tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of nonexistent construction work allegedly performed by Garrett Ventures LLC, a company he created in 2018.

Garrett pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and two counts of money laundering, according to the plea agreement filed in his case. U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young also ordered Garrett pay $87,192.84 to Business 1, forfeit the purchased items, and undergo two years of probation.

Garrett and his husband, Richard D. Garrett, own Evansville 411 News, a social media page with more than 59,000 followers on Facebook. Garrett Ventures LLC is listed as the company's registered agent in Indiana Secretary of State records.

But in a statement, Evansville 411 News said Richard and Patrick Garrett no longer worked for the company.

"The filing of the page under their 'business' was done without the other administrators' consent, as we do the actual work for the page," they said.

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Purchases and invoices

An indictment against Patrick Garrett, as well as a plea agreement and the news release, lay out the case.

Garrett worked as “sales specialist” for Business 1, the indictment states. He was reportedly responsible for handling “accounts payable and accounts receivable,” and entering invoice data so Business 1 could pay its vendors.