That’s definitely not what friends are for. Criminal Minds alum Shemar Moore was robbed of more than $60,000 by former pal Keith Tisdell, a guest actor on the show who he had befriended in 2013, according to the Los Angeles Times.
On Wednesday, August 10, Moore, 46, and Tisdell, 42, reached an agreement that Tisdell would have to repay the actor a total of $61,084 to avoid jail time. Tisdell’s attorney forked over $5,000 worth of money orders, and his client is expected to pay off the remaining balance.
The pair first met on the set of Criminal Minds when they appeared together on the same season 8 episode. (Tisdell was reprising his character, Rodney Harris, who he first played on the show in season 2.)
Moore, who played FBI agent Derek Morgan for 11 seasons before leaving the series for good this past March, invited his new pal to work with him on his retail company, Baby Girl LLC, which raises funds for multiple sclerosis research.
“In bringing that story to life, we became friends. … We went into business together,” Moore told Judge Hayden Zacky before Wednesday’s sentencing, according to the L.A. Times. But the entire time Moore thought he was lending his friend a hand, it turned out Tisdell was slowly funneling money from the company.
“In my mind, he wasn’t man enough to look me in the eye and fess up,” Moore told the judge, noting that he had bought Tisdell $10,000 rims for his car, funded shared overseas vacations and even helped him with up to $20,000 in expenses over the years.
“I’ve done a lot for him because he had me, my friends fooled,” Moore said. “I’m not here for money. I’m here because he betrayed a friendship. This is not OK. You don’t do this to people.”
Records show that Tisdell was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement in January, but he later pleaded guilty to grand theft.
