CRESTVIEW — Dr. Robert S. Caputo, accused in 2010 of stealing $800,000 from his company’s pension plan to pay personal expenses, has been ordered to pay back $225,000 of that money.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday that it had obtained a consent judgment against Caputo and Glenn M. Bankert that requires them to restore $225,000 to an employee stock ownership plan.
Caputo’s medical group, Robert S. Caputo D.O., maintained the pension plan. Bankert was a plan trustee.
The consent judgment settles a 2010 civil suit filed against Caputo and Bankert in U.S. District Court in Pensacola.
The lawsuit, filed by the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, alleged “the defendants breached their fiduciary responsibilities in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act,” according to a news release issued Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleged that the pension plan held about 97 percent of the medical company’s total assets, and between 2000 and 2006 Caputo used the fund to cover personal expenses and loans.
He paid for things such as boat insurance, real estate investments, a motorcycle and motor home, vacations and gifts, the lawsuit contended.
Caputo also paid for a divorce and covered the costs of his alimony with the employee retirement money, the lawsuit said.
Caputo, 65, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology whose office is on Redstone Avenue in Crestview, was not in the office Wednesday. Efforts to contact him for comment were not successful.
“Workers deserve to reap the full benefits of their hard-earned retirement savings,” Isabel Colon, EBSA’s regional director in Atlanta, said in the news release from the Labor Department.
“This agency is committed to taking action on behalf of workers when plan fiduciaries fail in their duty to act solely in the interest of the participants,” Colon said.
The lawsuit also alleged that Caputo and Bankert violated the retirement security act by allowing the pension plan to purchase stock from participants at inflated prices.
It alleged Caputo and Bankert failed to keep accurate records, refused to allow older workers to diversify their account balances and never bothered to take proper action to remedy Caputo’s misuse of company funds.
“Under the terms of the judgment, Caputo and Bankert will allow $225,000 of their employee stock ownership plan participant accounts to be applied as an offset against their debt to the stock ownership plan,” the news release said.
Caputo and Bankert’s share of the pension fund was not included in the amount they agreed to pay back, Labor Department spokesman Lindsay Williams said.
That is why the settlement only calls for payment of about 25 percent of what the government claimed was stolen.
“Based on their seniority in the company, they had larger shares of the fund than other employees, but they won’t have to pay themselves back, just the other employees,” Williams said in an email.
The lawsuit also alleged the medical group’s accounting firm, Iowa-based Oden and Thielking, knew or should have known that the price of the medical group’s stock was inflated. The accounting firm was not a party to the consent judgment.
The judgment also bars the defendants from ever overseeing another employee benefit plan subject to the Retirement Income Security Act, the news release said.
An “independent fiduciary” will be appointed to administer the existing plan, it said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.