BLOOMFIELD HILLS (WWJ) -- A former Oakland Hills Country Club worker has been sentenced for embezzling nearly $700,000 dollars from a scholarship fund.
62-year-old Craig Maass was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday morning in Oakland County Circuit Court.
He pleaded no contest to the embezzlement charges during a pre-trial Zoom hearing held in July before Oakland County Judge Yasmine Yoles.
The stolen money was part of Oakland Hills’ caddie scholarship fund, which Maass oversaw.
Investigators say Maass wrote a series of six checks -- each over $100,000 -- to his consulting firm over the course of a nine month period in 2018 and 2019.
When a routine audit was conducted by the scholarship board into the fund, they discovered Maass had taken a total of $697,000.
Maass was arrested in January 2020, but later released in April of that same year due to the spread of coronavirus.
The former caddie previously blamed his legal troubles on alcohol addiction, and said he was so heavily under the influence that he doesn’t even remember how he spent the money.
Maass also claims the club owed him money for expenses related to fundraising activities he had set up, as well as his own membership fees, and contests the amount of he is accused of stealing.
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