Scott Welch was like any executive in top-level management. Big salary, very driven.

The thing is, Welch had an unusual obsession with tropical plants. So much so that he ended up embezzling millions of dollars from Wachovia to feed his habit.



We're talking about a fascination with flora and fauna, here.



In a new piece from the Charlotte Observer, courtesy of NY Mag, we learn how Welch managed to screw his employer out of $11.2 million so he could landscape his home with lavish plants:

NY Mag: Scott Welch loved to landscape. Neighbors say the Welches had new palm trees delivered every year, and county records show there used to be a large lighthouse statue in their backyard. Welch had [local stonemason Delmar] Dove build stone walls, do irrigation work, and even add brick tiling to the doghouse.

As if brick tiling to a doghouse wasn't enough, Welch apparently took a liking to Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, building a ridicuously expensive log-cabin for his children to play in:

He also commissioned a $77,000 log-cabin playhouse for his children. And he might not have stopped there! He might have kept adding birdbaths, koi ponds, and maybe even bougainvillea and hibiscus bushes and assorted other tropical plants — despite the fact that, as indicated by the fact that his palm trees need to be replenished annually when they should have been fine given the proper care, according to North Carolina's Gary's Nursery, Welch's passion was ironically and tragically impeded by a terrible brown thumb — were he not laid off in 2008, at which point the company reviewed his expense forms and discovered he had been billing them for his hobby.

Welch is now facing up to 30 years in prison for his lavish shopping spree. According to the Charlotte Observer article, he apparently had an obsession with landscaping and kept wanting to out-do himself each time he funnelled money from Wachovia to do more decorating.