Former Discovery Tours VP charged with embezzling $600,000 from the company

A Hudson man was charged with wire fraud, money laundering, bank fraud and making a false statement after allegedly embezzling $600,000 from an educational tour company. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio announced charges against Joseph Cipolletti, 45, on Friday, stemming from an 18-count indictment. According to a news release, Cipolletti was vice president of Discovery Tours Inc. and allegedly diverted payments intended for school trips for his personal use, defrauding families and embezzling funds he later used for home renovations and vehicles. Families from Lorain County schools were among the thousands of victims who lost money from the prepaid trips. The Mayfield-based tour company offered educational trips to Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York, Columbus and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to school districts, handling everything from hotel accommodations to sightseeing admissions. Prosecutors say Cipoletti made false entries into the company's ledger claiming the funds he allegedly stole were trip-related and forged an email to a hotel claiming his company had lost more than $236,000 due to a hacked account to explain nonpayment. He reportedly paid vendors for previous student trips with the deposits for future trips, taking out high-interest loans that eventually forced Discovery Tours to file for bankruptcy. In 2016, Cipolletti knowingly issued five bad checks to a hotel vendor in Virginia, after the vendor informed him the company would be required to prepay for hotel accommodations after previous delays in payments, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office. On May 7, 2018, Discovery Tours abruptly ended its operations and filed for bankruptcy, abandoning dozens of districts without warning. More than 5,000 families across the state lost money they had previously paid for trips, including those in Elyria, Oberlin and Vermilion schools. In U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Cipolletti allegedly lied under oath, claiming he did not owe his business any money, when he'd embezzled $609,942 from the company and falsified the general ledger, authorities say. "When these families paid for a trip, fraud wasn't on the itinerary," Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a news release. "This business owner didn't keep his word, so now his next destination will be the courthouse."