A man from Killdeer has been accused of defrauding more than five million dollars from an oilfield cleanup company in western North Dakota over the course of several years.

According to court records, Shawn Kluver of Killdeer has been charged with three class A felonies: two counts of theft by deception, and one count of exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

The charges stem from activities authorities say began in 2015, when Kluver came to be associated with Environmental Driven Solutions, or EDS, a company that provides cleaning services in North Dakota’s energy sector.

An affidavit says Kluver was a manager for the company in January of 2015 — but signed an agreement to give up ownership rights and become an employee in November.

Authorities say he maintained several bank accounts for EDS and used them to steal from company, cashing checks that were meant to be counted as profit for EDS.

The affidavit says Kluver later established his own company, Little Knife LLC, a salt water conversion site in McKenzie County. He claimed it would generate revenue for EDS. Investigators say the 82-year-old owner of EDS put up a $300,000 investment in Little Knife LLC — but afterwards, Kluver changed the paperwork to make himself the sole owner of the business, then used EDS resources and employees to operate it.

Officials also say oilfield equipment belonging to EDS was leased to outside companies for thousands of dollars a month starting in 2015 — money that EDS never received.

“Between all of the different theft/fraud schemes,” the affidavit reads, “Shawn Kluver took $5,379,921.63 from the company.”

A warrant for Kluver’s arrest was issued on Thursday, April 30th.

Each of the three class A felonies of which Kluver is accused carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.