HENRICO, Va. (WRIC) — A Henrico man whose sneaker business was at the center of an 8News investigation in 2021 has been arrested by federal authorities on charges of fraud and money laundering.
Justin Godsey was the owner of Sneak Foot, Ltd., an online sneaker resaler that came under scrutiny in 2021 after customers complained that they never received their orders. 8News confronted Godsey at the time, and he claimed he didn’t own the company but rather “simply managed risk for SneakFoot and secured payment processing capabilities.”
Later investigations revealed that the company had a large number of fake reviews and a long history of business complaints.
Now, an indictment in federal court alleges that Godsey never owned the vast majority of the shoes put up for sale on his online store. Instead, they wrote, Godsey took payments for the non-existent shoes and “used the funds … for personal expenditures and made no attempt to obtain the shoes.”
Watch 8News reporter Kerri O’Brien confront Godsey at his home in 2021
When customers demanded refunds for the shoes, the payment processors Godsey worked with were forced to repay the customers, with the understanding that Godsey would reimburse them in turn.
But, the indictment alleges, Godsey instead played a shell game, allegedly using new fraudulent sales from a second payments company to repay the first.
In total, the fraudulent sales totaled $874,000.
Those funds didn’t stay with Sneak Foot. Instead, the indictment claims, they were transferred through a shell company, Bullion Holdings, LLC.
That company, according to records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, was run by Shannon Forsyth — identified as Individual 1 in the indictment — whose home, which she shares with Godsey, was also the listed address for Sneak Foot.
When 8News visited the property in 2021, several luxury SUVs were parked out front, including a Ferrari and Lamborghini.
When confronted in 2021, Godsey told 8News, “I do stocks for a living.”
Now, both Bullion and Sneak Foot are inactive, according to state records — but Godsey’s latest company, Tomiking, has both an active registration in Midlothian and online storefront, which lists die-cast toy cars for sale.
