The offence involved $693,625.77 in funds stolen from the City of Fort Worth.

“If criminals are deciding who to target, and they know Tarrant County judges are giving sentences like this, they may avoid this area in the future,” Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson said.

Here’s how the theft occurred.

In October 2017, a change of account request was submitted to the city of Fort Worth that appeared to be from Imperial Construction, which was doing business with the city. The fraudulent request, which was granted, was to update Imperial’s wiring instructions so that Fort Worth’s invoice payments due to Imperial would be directed to a new account at Chase Bank.

Fadipe, 50, was the sole authorized user of the new Chase account. Once money was transferred by the city into that account, Fadipe immediately moved those stolen funds into four other accounts he controlled at Prosperity Bank and Capital One Bank between November 2017 and early 2018.