A detention hearing is set for Thursday, April 14 for a former manager at SeaWorld who has been charged with stealing $750,000 from the company through an elaborate embezzlement.
Sebastian Jobin, 47, remains in the Metropolitan Correctional Center without bail and a federal judge will decide at the hearing whether to keep him there through trial. He pleaded not guilty on April 4 following his March 12 arrest in Dallas.
Jobin is charged with wire fraud, but more charges could be added as he is accused of creating more than 100 fake invoices from a fictitious company he created whose only business was with Sea World San Diego. He could face tax charges for not reporting the income he is alleged to have received in the scheme.
The fraudulent invoices came from his computer at Sea World and it listed deliveries of merchandise such as “sea creature rings,” and “purple shiny ornaments.” No merchandise was ever delivered and no packing slips were ever found.
SeaWorld executives suspended him on Jan. 22, 2015. They found his cell phone linked to the sham company and the names of himself and his former roommate listed as co-owners with the California Secretary of State. The company’s address was listed as Jobin’s residence in Mission Hills.
Bank records for SJ Merchandise listed Jobin’s home address, and tax records he filed with the Internal Revenue Service list him as the 100 percent owner of the firm from 2010 to 2013, according to court records.
Bank records for the firm show it paid nothing for any merchandise it sold, and most of the expenses were for restaurants, clothing stores, and plane tickets. Jobin was the only SeaWorld employee who ever interacted with the company and he was listed as accepting their merchandise for SeaWorld.
Jobin was suspended from his job at Sea World on Jan. 22, 2015. SeaWorld discovered the invoices on his computer. He began work at SeaWorld in 1997, and was assigned to the entertainment department in 2004.
He is charged under his full legal name of Wilfred David Joseph Jobin-Reyes, but he is known as Sebastian Jobin on entertainment websites and his Linked-In account.