After promising local investment, owner of manufacturing company facing theft, fraud charges

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A southern Indiana manufacturing company promised to bring dozens of jobs and millions of dollars to the local economy, but the owner instead was arrested on theft and fraud.

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. Last November, GIM, Inc. announced they were expanding its Louisville services to Scottsburg. The plan was to build a 300,000-square-foot facility, which would've brought more than a hundred jobs.

Gibbs allegedly owes employee and vendors several hundred thousand dollars.

Troy Ponder is a commercial and residential electrician in Scott County. He was contacted by Gibbs about a job last December.

"He reached out to me on the phone, invited me and the Mayor of Scottsburg and other officials to meet with him to have lunch," Ponder said.

Ponder said Gibbs took them on a tour of the plant and shared his vision.

"We walked through there and started talking about all the different things he had in mind to do there," Ponder said. "He was going to help the community grow by producing jobs."

Ponder said he received two checks, but there was also a caveat. He was owed more than $100,000.

"He wrote two checks out to me with the agreement that I had to wait a week to get paid," Ponder said. "Those dates came and gone and I never received a dime."

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.

Neither the Mayor's office nor the Scott County Chamber of Commerce responded to requests for comments. 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.

Tracy Stivers, a former employee of Gibbs, started working for him in January.

"He told me he'd make my salary well worth it," Stivers said. "I took a supervisor's job out there and it all went south from there.

"One day I woke up, my check got taken out of my account and I texted him to bring cash. He showed up in a helicopter with no money."

Gibbs is in custody at the Shelby County Detention Center. There is no timeline set for when Gibbs will be brought to Indiana.

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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