An Oregon couple who worked for an Oregon publishing giant have been charged with stealing $34 million in exorbitant and bogus charges, including lavish properties and a private jet, according to court documents.
Sergey V. Lebedenko, 53, and his wife Galina A. Lebedenko, 48, were charged with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly defrauding Win McCormack, a 79-year-old political activist and founder of Tin House Books, from 2016 to 2023.
For years, Sergey Lebedenko worked as a driver for McCormack, and their business relationship soon changed with time and he and his wife housesat for McCormack and ran his errands, a criminal complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Oregon said.
The Lebedenkos charged their services to McCormack’s American Express card in the name of their business, Astra Car Service. However, McCormack did not regularly check his card charges, and for years the couple raked in piles of money — including $9 million in 2019 alone — right under McCormack’s nose, the complaint said.
The charges were flagged to the FBI in December by McCormack’s legal representatives, per the complaint.
Win McCormack is a Democratic donor and writer who was the editor-in-chief of Tin House Magazine and was involved in the starting of Mother Jones magazine, according to his bio for Tin House. Though the court records did not name McCormack, his attorney confirmed that he was the alleged fraud victim.
McCormack met Lebedenko and starting using his chauffeur services in 2006 or 2007, and soon after Lebedenko became his handyman and essentially his personal assistant helping him with errands, the complaint said.
At the start of their arrangement, Lebedenko charged McCormack $90 an hour on his Amex for rides. An invoice Galina emailed to McCormack in 2013 showed the charge of $90 an hour for driving services and $60 an hour for walking services.
McCormack “occasionally discovered” that the couple had overcharged his AmEx. On an occasion in Aug. 6,…
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