NYC exec stole $6M, used dough to buy $150K engagement ring and 150 plane tickets: prosecutors

A Manhattan marketing exec swiped nearly $6 million from firms he worked for — splashing some of the dough on a $150,000 engagement ring and 150 plane tickets for jaunts, authorities said Monday.Michael Collins, the 61-year-old chief marketing officer for the digital banking platform nCino, created bogus companies filled with fake employees and led by phony presidents to pull off his scheme, prosecutors said.He pleaded not guilty Monday as he was indicted on grand-larceny and falsifying-business-records charges in Manhattan Supreme Court for the eight-year set-up, where he allegedly stole millions of dollars from his employers to fuel a lavish personal life.“[Collins] used the stolen funds for such things as executive club memberships, luxury brands, fine dining and extensive travel and lodging, including over 150 flight tickets purchased during the period of the thefts,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Michael Luongo told the court.“Notably, the defendant also used the stolen funds to pay for a $150,000 engagement ring from a boutique jewelry store,” the ADA said.Collins used two fake companies – Quattro Quadrati LLC and Regiondrivers LLC – to steal money from his jobs between March 2016 and April 2024, falsifying email addresses, phone numbers and bank accounts to make his scheme appear legitimate, according to the indictment.Collins was so concerned about being caught that he went as far as investigating whether his identity could “be shielded or masked” from anyone trying to dig up dirt on him, prosecutors said.He even created fake people inside his fantasy companies in an effort to cover his tracks, according to court papers.“The defendant took pains to cover up the mechanics of his theft, including by creating fictitious individuals to serve as presidents and employees of the fictitious companies and registering email accounts to those names,” Luongo told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Althea Drysdale — seeking to keep Collins lock...