Former North Texas CEO convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for wire fraud

WESTLAKE, Texas — The founder of Slync, a supply-chain management software startup, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for defrauding investors of tens of millions of dollars, authorities announced Thursday.

A jury convicted Christopher Kirchner, 37, of four counts of wire fraud and seven counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. He was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, who also ordered him to pay more than $65 million in restitution.

“Even as his company was circling the drain, Chris Kirchner was spending millions of his investors’ money on himself. Apparently, projecting personal prosperity was more important to him than making payroll,” Simonton said.

Kirchner founded Slync in 2017 and held the position of CEO until his termination by the Board of Directors in 2022. He was initially charged in February 2023 after he was arrested at his home in Westlake on allegations that he misappropriated $20 million from the company.

Kirchner fraudulently raised more than $71 million over two years from numerous investors based on false representations and promises about Slync’s business operations, false representations about its financials, false representations about its customers and fantastical revenue projections. He then misappropriated over $25 million of the investor funds in various ways, according to evidence presented at the sentencing hearing.

Between April 2020 and March 2022, Kirchner initiated nearly 100 wire transfers moving money from his company’s Silicon Valley Bank account into the company’s account at JPMorgan Chase Bank which only he could access. He then wired some of the money from the Chase account to his personal bank accounts…