Tax director pleads guilty in scheme to steal from company

Keith Alan Franz, 60, of Highlands Ranch has pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of mail fraud in what authorities describe as a scheme to take $530,985 in tax refunds from a company that hired him as its tax director.

Franz is free on bond, and scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge R. Brook Jackson on July 13. Franz was charged by information in Denver on Jan. 22.

According to charges against Franz, from 2008 until June 2014 he was employed as tax director for Pendum LLC, a…