Dive Brief:
- Former Detroit Riverfront Conservancy CFO William Smith lost a motion to appeal a 19-year prison sentence relating to a $40 million embezzlement scheme, according to a court order filed Wednesday by Clerk Kelly Stevens for the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Sixth District.
- Citing a plea agreement signed by Smith in 2024, the ex-CFO “waive[d] any right he may have to appeal his sentence on any grounds” if his sentence of imprisonment does “not exceed the midpoint of the guideline range determined by the Court or 235 months, whichever is greater,” a panel of three circuit judges said in granting the prosecutor’s motion to dismiss Smith’s appeal.
- The district court sentenced Smith to 228 months imprisonment, meaning the appellate waiver bars Smith’s appeal, Stevens said in the filing.
Dive Insight:
A non-profit which focuses on expanding access to Detroit’s international Riverfront, Smith first joined the conservancy in 2006 and took its top finance seat in 2011, a role he held until his termination in 2024.
In June of that year, federal prosecutors charged the ex-finance chief with siphoning millions from the company over an 11-year period to fund luxury purchases, including airline tickets, limousine rides, clothing and jewelry, CFO Dive reported at the time.
Smith pled guilty in November 2024 to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, according to an April 2025 press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Officer for the Eastern District of Michigan. As well as the 19-year prison sentence, Smith was also ordered to pay about $48 million in restitution and to forfeit any “ill-gotten gains that were traceable to his scheme,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time.
Smith appealed the ruling last November, with attorneys for the ex-CFO arguing that the 9-year sentence was “substantively unreasonable as arbitrarily tethered to impermissible considerations,” according to the request for appeal.
In requesting the appeal, attorneys for Smith argued that his sentencing was arbitrarily linked to his length of employment at the DRFC, with one year of his 19-year imprisonment term corresponding to one year of his prior employment at the non-profit.
Additionally, attorneys argued that the sentencing range for Smith’s offenses was increased because the court improperly applied multiple sentencing enhancements — one for sophisticated laundering and another for sophisticated means — in error as those enhancements refer to the same conduct, according to the brief.
In the Wednesday document dismissing the appeal, Stevens notes that Smith “does not attack the validity of the appellate-waiver provision in his plea agreement. And the arguments he raises on appeal fall within the scope of the waiver.”
“We support U.S. District Judge Susan DeClercq’s 2025 decision to sentence William Smith to 19 years in prison and the decision yesterday of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to deny his appeal,” DRFC CEO Ryan Sullivan said in a statement emailed to CFO Dive.
In July 2024, the DRFC also separately filed suit against Smith, arguing the former finance chief had breached his fiduciary duty and requesting full monetary relief, CFO Dive previously reported. The DRFC’s lawsuit also named members of Smith’s family — his mother, wife and sister — as co-conspirators, claiming they utilized the ill-gotten funds to purchase high-end luxury items including designer goods, beauty supplies and restaurant meals.
“While we cannot comment on the ongoing state of our legal proceedings, we continue to do everything we can to reclaim assets stolen from the Conservancy and the broad community of people who enjoy Detroit’s beautiful riverfront,” Sullivan said in the emailed statement.
Gerald Evelyn, attorney for Smith, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the dismissal of the appeal.
