President of large Louisville manufacturing company arrested, accused of theft and fraud

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The president and owner of a large manufacturing company with operations in Louisville and southern Indiana was arrested Friday on several warrants.

Kentucky State Police arrested 57-year-old John Christopher Gibbs, the president and CEO of GIM, Inc. Gibbs is facing multiple counts of theft, fraud and corrupt business influence.

"It's just very hurtful because we really trusted in this man," Amy Youngblood, who used to work for Gibbs, said. "I would never want anything bad to happen to anybody, but knowing the circumstances and everything that a group of us have went through, I feel like it was much needed," Youngblood said.

Last November, GIM, Inc. announced they were expanding its Louisville services to Scottsburg. At that time, Scottsburg Mayor Terry Amick praised the new Scott County project.

"It was, you know, broadcasted all over social media, putting all this, millions of dollars into this building. And, you know, it was just a great opportunity," Youngblood said.

The plan was to build a 300,000-square-foot facility, which would've brought hundreds of jobs. However, Youngblood said weeks into the new job she noticed some red flags, and she wasn't alone.

"First week went by and we got a check; and a few days after we had deposited it, it bounced. So, no big deal, you know, it was just a week. So, we got another check, and the second check came and it bounced again. And we got a third one and by the third one, it was the third week, and we were all starting to question a lot of things," Youngblood said.

Along with the 20 plus new employees, Gibbs hired several vendors. Todd Ungru, Koehler Welding's president, says they lost about a months worth of business.

"A lot of people, business people, like myself put a lot of faith in to what we read online and doing our vetting of both himself and the business and everything you see online, etc," Ungru said. "The local community, the State of Indiana and everything backed this guy. So that's what we put a lot of faith in. Luckily we're a successful enough business to where this didn't really crush us or hurt us that bad, but I feel terrible for the community, Scottsburg, that this guy was pledging all these jobs and all this, great pay rate and everything like that to the people in the local community who need those jobs currently. And, not only the people, but also the local business owners that took a leap of faith on him as well that can't afford to take this type of loss. That's mainly who I feel bad for."

The victims included various contractors in southern Indiana and a locally based financial institution. There's more than $302,000 total in suspected fraudulent monies in the case.

"It's nothing like I've ever seen so for our community, I think it was very devastating," Youngblood said.

Youngblood originally worked for Thomas Plastics, but sought out the new, promising career opportunity at the beginning of this year. She said several 2022 Thomas Plastics employees made the same career switch, but ultimately decided GIM Inc. wasn't going to support them financially.

"A lot of us decided we can't do this anymore," Youngblood said. And, we were actually given the opportunity to come back and work at Thomas. I'm just so thankful because I feel like God was actually looking out for all of us. And, I just couldn't do it anymore there; and I hate to know that something like that would have been so big for this community and it turned out the way it did."

There was more than $18 million invested in the Scottsburg project. The facility was going to make a replacement for concrete that could be used in parking garages, bridges and more.

According to Indiana State Police, a detective was contacted by a business vendor and potential fraud victim in March. The vendor alleged Gibbs paid for services with a fraudulent check.

The check was for an amount for more than $10,000, and detectives believe Gibbs knowingly wrote the check the day after he closed the associated checking account.

Over the course of the investigation, detectives learned of other agencies who were potential victims and owed large payments from GIM, Inc. for the work they completed at the factory in Scottsburg.

Gibbs was arrested at a Simpsonville hotel that he was using as his residence. KSP also arrested Gibbs on related warrants from Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia.

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