Lonnie Gene King of Renton was arrested on Tuesday by Woodinville police officers and booked into the King County Correctional Facility in downtown Seattle on 30 counts of suspected theft from his employer, SportsArt of Woodinville.
According to King County Superior Court documents, King confessed to the embezzlement and to stealing up to $30,000 from a local high school booster club that is not identified.
The 49-year-old King is a self-described active Mormon church member and local sports booster. He posted a photo of himself with Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll on his Facebook page.
King County Sheriff’s Sgt. D.B. Gates told KIRO 7 that King, while working in the accounts receivable department at SportsArt, created a bogus company and bank account with a name similar enough to SportsArt that “he was able to take some of the checks that were coming in to the business and deposit them into the fake account.”
In a jail courtroom Wednesday, SportsArt employee Anne Devney told Judge Mark Chow that King replaced her when she left the company, but that she was recently re-hired to uncover King’s alleged theft. Devney asked Chow to set a high bail, arguing the amount King allegedly stole is enough to skip town with and “he’s licensed to carry a firearm, and we worry about that because he could take that against people at SportsArt.”
A number of King’s family members, including grown children, were also in court and said he’s a loving father who doesn’t even own a weapon.
“I don’t believe he’s a threat to anyone,” King’s stepfather, David Alire, told the judge. “He’s a good-standing member of his church.”
According to the police report, King told detectives he used money he stole from SportsArt to pay back the high school booster club. Sgt. Gates said, despite allegedly taking more than half a million dollars, King did not live extravagantly.
“He was not doing anything flashy,” said Gates. “But for whatever reason, he was giving some money to a female that’s not related to him.”
Gates also said detectives are now investigating whether King might have embezzled money from prior employers.
Other than what Anne Devney told the judge during Wednesday’s bail hearing, SportsArt had no comment.
Want to talk about the news of the day? Watch free streaming video on the KIRO 7 mobile app and iPad app, and join us here on Facebook.
KIRO
