ST. GEORGE — A couple accused of stealing more than $500,000 in donations meant for Ukraine through their ammunition shop have pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud conspiracy.
John Earl Donaldson, 32, and Carlie Elizabeth Winters, 30, were charged in federal court in April 2024 with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. The couple was accused of defrauding customers and financial institutions of more than $600,000 in total, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Utah.
Donaldson was a federal law enforcement officer before working as a consultant for a private security company, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The couple ran a company called Urban Armz in St. George, which state records show was started in late 2020 with Donaldson as its registered agent. Their website falsely claimed that the “company clients” included the FBI and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to court documents, and claimed they could “sell large quantities of ammunition to potential customers for competitively low prices.”
When a customer wired $90,000 to the company for 300,000 rounds of ammunition in December 2021, investigators say the company never delivered.
In April 2022, charging documents say a Detroit-based company paid Urban Armz $300,000 for body armor, while another nonprofit sent over $217,000 for “night vision goggles, thermal optics and other equipment” — both orders intended for Ukrainian first responders in war zones.
Neither order made it to Ukraine, according to the indictment, with Donaldson and Winters spending over $600,000 from the three orders on “unrelated parties, other withdrawals, shopping and transfers to personal accounts.”
The two told each company that orders were delayed, sometimes blaming the shipping company or customs, before going silent, according to court documents.
“I falsely represented to a nonprofit organization that Urban Armz could fulfill an order of body armor and other equipment that the nonprofit intended to donate to Ukrainian first responders. After the nonprofit paid for the order, I falsely represented that the delivery was delayed and would imminently arrive,” Donaldson said in his guilty plea statement.
On May 19, Donaldson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 25.
Winters pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud conspiracy. She will be sentenced on Oct. 10.
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