A Spring, Texas resident has been sentenced for embezzling over $1 million from his employer to fund gambling debts, according to an announcement by U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Donald Ray Owens Jr., 34, pleaded guilty on May 9, 2025. U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. ordered Owens to serve 24 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. During the sentencing hearing, Owens requested leniency and explained that he had developed an addiction to online sports gambling. The court cited the financial harm to the company and repeated misuse of a corporate credit card as factors in determining the sentence.
Owens was also ordered to pay $1,081,722.96 in restitution.
Owens worked at Dominion Aesthetics Technology Inc. Between May 2022 and January 2024, he used his company credit card approximately 217 times to send money to an online payment platform account opened in his wife’s name. He then transferred those funds into bank accounts he controlled and eventually into a personal gambling account.
He admitted that he used the company credit card to embezzle about $1.1 million for gambling debts.
Owens will remain on bond and is expected to voluntarily surrender at a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility that will be determined later.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas is part of the Department of Justice and serves under the Attorney General according to its official website. The office employs more than 200 attorneys and covers 43 counties with a population exceeding nine million as detailed here. It has offices in Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville as listed on its site, focusing on prosecuting federal crimes and handling civil cases for the government as described here. Past leaders have included Alamdar Hamdani (2022-2025) and Ryan Patrick according to official records.
