Charity worker says bitcoin scam forced him to steal $150K from veterans
A 72-year-old Arkansas man accused of steal ing $150,000 from a homeless veterans charity claims he took the money to pay off Bitcoin Scam mers who stole his identity and threatened to release digitally altered nude photographs. Martin J. Svoboda II was arrested last week on three counts of theft after Arkansas Veterans Village, which provides transitional housing to homeless veterans , noticed a gaping hole in its accounts. As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Svoboda was the charity’s treasurer with full access to its accounts. Last December, he told police he’d taken $150,000 from the nonprofit. Svoboda claimed he was blackmailed in October by scammers who had stolen his identity and threatened to post digitally altered nude pictures of him . They reportedly demanded a sum of bitcoin that Svoboda claims pushed him to steal from the charity. The veteran’s charity president, Cindy Ford, told police that Svoboda had apparently been writing checks to himself since...