An accountant accused of using embezzled company money to hire a hitman to murder his wife has passed a lie detector test regarding his involvement, according to his daughter.

John Franklin Howard - of Carrollton, Dallas - was arrested last month and accused of hiring a hitman for £100,000 to kill his wife Nancy Howard, who was shot in the face but miraculously survived.

His daughter, Ashley Faus, who has kept a blog since her mother's attempted murder, posted a recent entry in which she defended her father, citing several reasons as to why people should believe his innocence.

In her blog post relating to the unofficial lie detector test, Faus said: 'My dad passed a third party polygraph test regarding accusations that he was involved in the incident with my mom.

'He answered, "no" to every question regarding the incident, and a certified expert found no deception in his answers.'

Howard, CFO of Raley Holdings, is also being sued by his company and JP Morgan Chase, who have accused him of transferring millions of dollars of Raley's money into accounts he created at JP Morgan between 2009 and 2011, where he was the sole signatory, the The Daily Mail reports.

The money was allegedly used to hire the hitman and passed off as 'office supplies' in the accounts.

Raley's lawsuit alleges that Howard signed company cheques and exploited his knowledge of the company's banking and tax information to siphon money out of the business.

The company is seeking damages and a restraining order and has requested that JPMorgan freeze Howard's accounts.

Allegations of Howard's alleged involvement in the attempted murder emerged after his wife sued to divorce him, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Yet within hours of his wife being shot, her husband of 29 years was at her bedside in hospital. An informant tipped off the FBI and Howard was arrested.

Allegations also emerged in an arrest warrant that Howard had kept a mistress for several years and that he had used some of the money to fund her lifestyle, which included purchasing a condominium, an $800,000 house and paying $500,000 for her daughter's college tuition.

Nancy Howard wrote that she had thought the couples' assets were all in a joint account, but at the bail hearing 'it was revealed that there are several "shadow" companies that he owns and that he may be in control of over $32m'.

Howard was released on bail of $1m.