Chad Arrington, an aspiring rapper out of Baltimore who goes by the moniker Chad Focus, is facing up to 20 years in prison for allegedly charging $4.1 million in unauthorized purchases to his company American Express card, The Baltimore Sun reports.
As Chad Focus, the Baltimore native released a song titled “Dance With Me” in 2017. “Dance With Me” landed on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart at No. 38 the following year. He also released a remix featuring Grammy Award-winning artist T-Pain — all of which was allegedly funded through the use of his company credit card between January 2015 and August 2018.
The 31-year-old alleged con artist reportedly worked as a Search Engine Optimization specialist for several years at investment publisher Money Map Press, a subsidiary of the local financial publishing giant The Agora Companies, which gave him access to the American Express card.
Arrington also used the Amex to splurge on audio equipment, artificial streams on Spotify, social media followers and billboards across the country, including a massive advert in the middle of Times Square he purchased through Focus Music Entertainment LLC — a company he formed to push his music through under his stage name.
His YouTube channel appears to have a few music videos he’s invested in including his year-old track “Get To The Money,” which has pulled in over 4.3 million views to date. The official music video for “Dance With Me” sits at a paltry 1,686 views at the time of this writing.
On Arrington’s Instagram, he offers his more than 187,000 paid followers advice on how to make a No. 1 hit record.
“A lot of these marketers, a lot of these record labels and a lot of these niggas talking shit, they don’t understand how to take an artist from to $300,000,” he says in one video. “Instead they spending millions of dollars. If you can officially come up with $300,000 you can streamline your efforts.”
According to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, Arrington also used the card to make $1.5 in purchases with businesses owned from unnamed accomplices. The unnamed people then kicked back hundreds of thousands in cash to Arrington. He also allegedly blew $100,000 on promotional “FOCUS” hats as well as an additional $125,000 in flights and tickets for his own shows.
On May 29, he was indicted by a federal grand jury.
Arrington is being held without bond and will stay behind bars until his scheduled hearing on Friday, June 7. He faces federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Watch the artist known as “Chad Focus” flash wads of stolen cash in his music video for “Cents” below.
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Evil Genius!!
Dope!!
I see you write shit all over this site, are you just some weirdo troll?
Your sad ass little life must not keep you busy enough. Get a hobby or some shit.
You must be on this site a lot if you see my comments. Bitch I not bothering you. So leave me the fvck alone!!
Don’t test me boy.
Stfu hoe
Who is he lol. First time ive heard of him. He definitely dont make no “Cents”. I wouldve said Sences but hes an official clown that is artificial in the music game haha. Damn I jus had a good laugh on this. Who knows who else does this artificial scams to built ur fake career. Stay up in prison. Keep ya head up. U made a name of urself i guess. But ur music wont be played in da nxt months or years Sorry. Damn.
Yo this makes no fucking common sense whatsoever. What kinda company gives a fucking S.E.O a company credit card with presumably no limit to it? And then no oversight whatsoever, it was a 3.5 year period lol not 1 month. Who paid the bills for those 3.5 years? At some point it obviously got into arrears, the company has no access to there own Credit/Financial statements?
When you have a great job that trusts you, you have that access. This idiot abused that and deserves to sit his dumb a$$ in jail. Just another example of people risking it all just to look good on social media. This the lamest cat Ive seen all year.
He was paying some people to falsify his statements to show legal purchases but, the company account manager caught on eventually.
What’s funny is he probably made 100k from the music…lol
Maybe I’m dumb but what’s a “struggle Baltimore rapper”. That is phrasing I am not familiar with at all.
They meant struggling Baltimore rapper. This site has questionable journalists, just overlook the typos and such.
I cannot overlook the typos if it’s in the headline in big ass font. Literally the first word.
Paying for a Times Square Billboard makes him a legend! Never heard of him
Lmao…man the situation isn’t funny, but your joke was. This is just…man I ain’t gonna say anything.
Wait Who spends thousands of dollars to make it to their own show. Like promoter pays him 15,000 for a show at best, but he spending $125,000 to make it 1st class, hotel and travel. Then on his way home, he like “damn i just made 6,000.” This is the new stupid!!
i think it says a lot about popular music. thousands, millions of dollars…. it says a lot about the business. you would think equal opportunity but that’s bullshit – take it from me… evan, lol.
Wow…this is just amazing
should of charged him an island than fled to it become king and say no extradition geez 4.1 million on a card & this what he do? should of FOCUSED on a get away plan
LMAO I cant stop laughing at how pathetic and lame man’s actions were, billboard on Times Square???? Unbelievable
20 years for credit card fraud???????? LOFL, the US is seriously out of control with their sentences. For real, you wouldn’t even do more than 3 years in Canada for that, if you even went to jail.
This isn’t a couple 100 or couple 1,000 dollars. It’s millions! I seriously doubt Canada is that lenient lol.
A couple million **fake** money… I would have done the same fuck amerikkka