A former chief executive of a Los Angeles-based digital media company won’t face new criminal charges, his attorney said Tuesday, five months after a federal judge dismissed a criminal indictment against the man.
The attorney for Victor Belonogoff, 49, of Burlingame, California, said federal prosecutors confirmed Monday they would not file further charges against Belonogoff.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the office had no comment beyond what’s been filed in court.
In April 2022, Belonogoff was charged with bilking Render Media, Inc., a Beverly Grove-based company he co-founded and ran until late 2018. Belonogoff was charged in the indictment filed in L.A. federal court with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
In January, U.S. District Judge Steven V. Wilson dismissed the indictment without prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled at a later date.
“Victor has steadfastly maintained that he is innocent of all allegations against him and that the evidence would prove he did not defraud Render, but instead saved it,” Belonogoff’s attorney Scott D. Tenley said in a statement.
“While this process has been lengthy and difficult for my client, we are grateful to the prosecutors who thoughtfully and objectively reexamined the evidence to reach the right decision in this case.”
Prosecutors had alleged that Belonogoff created a series of companies that defrauded his employer out of at least $3 million by submitting bills for services never provided or at inflated prices.
Weeks before trial, the government asked that the indictment be tossed in order to conduct further investigation into exculpatory evidence provided by the defense, Tenley said.
Over the next 14 months, Belonogoff’s legal team provided evidence and information to prosecutors showing that within the confines of Belonogoff’s contractual agreements with the business and its shareholders, Render had in fact benefited substantially from the services his companies provided, the attorney said.
This week, prosecutors closed their investigation of Belonogoff without further criminal charges, Tenley said.
In conjunction with its decision about Belonogoff, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss charges against Render employee Aryeh Kluger, who had been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Kluger, 36, of Dallas, had entered a guilty plea and was scheduled to be sentenced by Wilson in December, the case docket shows.