Slidell man accused in $2.5 million embezzlement scheme

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SLIDELL — A disbarred lawyer and former accountant has been accused of ripping off more than $2.5 million from a clay mining company and its clients, the Attorney General’s Office said.

John Brewster Ohle III, 58, was booked into Orleans Parish jail Thursday with forgery, identity theft, theft of more than $25,000, money laundering, bank fraud and computer fraud, booking records show.

Ohle is accused of diverting the mining company’s money to his own accounts over four years and forging a trucking agreement by posing as an officer in the company, a news release from the attorney general’s office said.

That agreement allowed him to deceive clients of the mining company where he was a contracted consultant, the news release said.

He is also accused of selling heavy equipment that belonged to the mining company and pocketing the money.

Over that four-year period from 2020 to 2024, Ohle is accused of stealing more than $2.5 million from the mining company and some of its clients.

State Supreme Court records show that Ohle was disbarred from practicing law in Louisiana in 2014 while he was serving five years in federal prison in an unrelated fraud and embezzlement case in New York.

Ohle did not cooperate with state investigators when they pursued a complaint from the mining company, officials said.

Ohle, who lives in Slidell, was arrested at a home in Metaire.

His Louisiana certified public accountant license was revoked in 2010, shortly after his federal conviction in New York, according to state records.

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