Photo Credit: Chad Focus/Instagram
Yesterday we reported on Baltimore rapper Chad Focus, whose real name is Chad Arrington, being indicted for embezzling over $4 million from his employer to fund a rap emplcareer. Immediately the memes comparing him to Joanne the Scammer came out but shortly after publishing our piece on this, something about the story didn’t set well with us. After spending some time digging into what happened, we found an associate of his, Michael Cornish who did a Facebook Live defending him saying that Chad Focus was an entrepreneurial man who made money long before he became Chad Focus the artist.
Regarding his background, Cornish said his parents had more money than what he was accused of taking. He went on to say that going back to graduating high school he made thousands selling coffee. Being about the same age as Chad, that I can attest to when people tried to get me to sell coffee and I refused. Looking back at it, it might not have been that bad of an idea. He says he sold MCA back in 2005. I also remember people selling that at the time and doing well with both. Given that he already had money before working his job or getting into music, it had to come from somewhere, right? Well according to Cornish, he was a marketing guru. After all, he appeared on conference panels and did classes himself on the subject. And he was obviously smart enough to start working at what Baltimore Fishbowl believes is the publishing giant Agora Companies in Baltimore because his company, Money Map Press was listed in the indictment as a subsidiary of theirs.
The video we’re sharing from this friend of Arrington’s pointed out that they’ve had their moments of not getting along but wanted to set the record straight that he was a smart man and successful long before this job came into the picture. And again, anyone who has ever had access to spend company money at their place of employment, have you ever heard of this happen? And if so, they likely had a job making millions. And if that was the case, he would have had the $4 million himself to spend on his career. A high school friend on Twitter also defended him stating that he gave scholarships to high school students. He did basketball tournaments for youth as well. He played basketball overseas in college which likely meant he had important people looking at him. His brother Brent Arrington still plays ball for the G League affiliate Greensboro Swarm. But take a look at this video and be the judge yourself. There’s something about this story and the likelyhood of it occurring that’s very alarming and we just wanted to encourage everyone to give it a second thought. And remember, it isn’t as though we’ve never had a case of indictments being wrong and charges dropped.
