A Vancouver man arrested this month on suspicion of embezzling more than $500,000 from a local electronics manufacturing services company also has been sued related to his business practices.
Tho Kim Hyunh, 45, was one of three owners of Vancouver-based Integrated Manufacturing Solutions Inc., 4607 N.E. 78th St. His last name also is sometimes spelled as “Huynh.” He was responsible for managing the company’s finances and distributing dividend checks to the other two shareholders, who also were his close friends. He is accused of falsifying documents to hide unauthorized company credit card purchases by him and his wife, Christina Van, in 2011 and 2012. A search warrant affidavit filed in Clark County District Court alleges that the couple used the card to gamble and to purchase vacations, jewelry and other luxury items such as Louis Vuitton purses and wallets. Hyunh also is accused of making unauthorized withdrawals from the company’s bank account during the same time period. He was terminated in November 2012, when the alleged fraud was discovered, Clark County sheriff’s Detective Kevin Harper wrote in a court affidavit.
His partners, Winston Yu and Troy Kerns, sued him last year for unspecific damages, attorney fees and interest for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and violations of the state Uniform Trade Secret Act.
Hyunh argued that his partners had “consented to use of Integrated Manufacturing Solutions’ funds to repay monies to certain third parties,” according to court documents. He said that his partners had failed to pay him for his one-third ownership of the company since he was fired, and he claimed that the company should indemnify him against claims by another company, ControlTek Inc. of Vancouver.
The case still hasn’t been resolved.
Earlier lawsuit
According to court documents, Hyunh also had a business called Interconnected Marketing Solutions. Before forming Integrated Manufacturing Solutions in 2007, Hyunh had contracted with ControlTek to serve as the company’s manufacturer’s representative in Washington and Oregon. His duties included soliciting business and generating leads for ControlTek in exchange for 10 percent commission.
ControlTek recently sued Hyunh, alleging that Hyunh had breached non-competition and non-solicitation provisions of the contract. ControlTek claimed that Hyunh formed Integrated Manufacturing Solutions without notifying anyone at ControlTek. He then solicited cable assembly work for both ControlTek and his own company, court documents state.
The case was taken to private arbitration in February, and arbitrator John Skimas awarded about $557,700 in damages and attorney fees to ControlTek.
Yu and Hyunh met in 1988 when they were both in college; Hyunh met Kerns in 1997 when they worked together, according to the search warrant affidavit. The three men founded Integrated Manufacturing Solutions LLC in 2007. In January 2010, they converted the company into a corporation. The partners agreed to share profits, losses and capital equally, the affidavit says.
All three of the partners had access to the company bank account at JPMorgan Chase.
Hyunh opened an American Express Gold account for Integrated Manufacturing Solutions Inc. and had cards issued to himself, Yu and Kerns. He also issued a card to his wife without authorization from Yu and Kerns, according to court documents.
While Hyunh and his wife made unauthorized purchases with the company credit cards, Hyunh provided the partners with access to a computerized balance sheet that showed the business had plenty of cash, court documents say. He allegedly falsified information on the balance sheet so that Yu and Kerns wouldn’t notice money was missing. He also hired relatives to work for the company and then paid them under the table, the search warrant affidavit says.
Search for statements
In fall 2012, however, he began asking Yu and Kerns for cash because the business was short on cash, court documents say. The partners were suspicious but didn’t have access to the bank statements because Hyunh kept those locked in a cabinet in the office.
While Hyunh was out of town, Kerns went to a Chase bank branch and obtained bank account statements for August, September and October of that year. The statements didn’t match with Hyunh’s financial reports to them, so Kerns and Yu requested statements for the previous two years, according to court documents.
They found that Hyunh had been making unauthorized purchases and withdrawals from the business account and also had been using company money to pay the mortgage on a house belonging to Hyunh’s mother.
During an unemployment benefits investigation, Hyunh admitted that he withdrew company money for his personal use.
“I was gambling at the time and I lost and I was chasing it and I was putting it back in,” Hyunh said, according to the search warrant affidavit. “I knew I did wrong and I wanted to pay it back. They were not aware of this.”
Hyunh appeared in Clark County Superior Court last week on suspicion of 12 counts of money laundering, 13 counts of first-degree theft, 132 counts of second-degree theft, 12 counts of first-degree identity theft and 28 counts of forgery. He was released from the Clark County Jail on Friday after posting a $200,000 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges Oct. 16.
Hyunh’s criminal history includes a federal conviction of possession of an unlawful firearm, which was a fully automatic machine gun, according to the search warrant affidavit.
