Christian Garvin, a well-known Santa Barbara winemaker, is now facing notoriety for a different reason. Garvin faces 52 years for embezzlement allegedly conducted against his former Los Angeles business partners. Court documents show that Garvin reportedly stole over $1 million from his partners and is being charged with felony counts of money laundering and tax fraud in addition to the embezzlement indictment. In all he is charged with 58 felony counts.
Oreana, the winery in question, is held in joint partnership between three parties, Garvin, Barry Goldfarb and Judy Koyama. Garvin, despite holding himself out as a sole proprietor of the business, only owned a 10% share of the company. The company reportedly made between $3 million and $5 million a year from 2006 to 2013 with one of the largest retailers selling the wine being Trader Joe’s.
Unfortunately for Garvin’s partners, they left the bookkeeping and management to him. When discrepancies in the bookkeeping began to arise, Garvin’s partners believed it was due to an alleged drug and alcohol problem. The truth was much more unsettling when they realized the amount of money that had actually been stolen.
Garvin’s bail was initially set at $400,000 but was reduced to $260,000 after arguments from defense counsel. The judge agreed with the prosecutor that Garvin was a potential flight risk and required him to turn over his passport and not leave Santa Barbara County without express permission from the court. The judge, however, did not buy the defense’s argument that he should be able to drink while awaiting trial since he is a winemaker by trade and instead enforced a strict no alcohol or drugs requirement on his release.
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