United Way Theft of $497,298 +..........

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
United Way Theft of $497,298 +..........
9
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 9:26am

I'm disillusioned with these big charity organizations & I'm definately not alone. (see last paragraph of article) Are you?


I make sure my entire donation go to a cause, not 70% or such. I get more satisfaction giving on a more personal basis when I know I've made a difference.


Former Head of United Way in the Washington Area Pleads Guilty to Theft.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/national/05WAY.html


The executive who ran the United Way here for 27 years pleaded guilty on Thursday to stealing $497,298 from the charity in a plea agreement that might send him to prison for 27 months. The charity's current president said that much more was taken and that a longer prison term was warranted.


The defendant, Oral Suer, ran the United Way of the National Capital Area, the nation's second-largest local United Way, with almost no oversight from the chief executives and business leaders who served on his board until he retired in 2001. For years he faked expenses, billed personal trips to Las Vegas to his United Way local and took cash advances that were not repaid, audits showed.


Mr. Suer, 69, also ordered the charity's auditors, the firm of Councilor, Buchanan & Mitchell, to withhold information about his misconduct from the board, a subsequent inquiry by the new board found. Although the accounting firm works for the board, not the agency's staff, it complied with the order year after year.


In Federal District Court here, Mr. Suer admitted to transporting $403,000 in stolen money across state lines and to taking $94,278.99 more than he was entitled to from the charity's pension plan, both felonies.


"I plead guilty, Your Honor," he told Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. Sentencing will be May 14.


The board that did not oversee Mr. Suer or his successor, Norman O. Taylor, was removed, and a new one was appointed. An audit it commissioned found last year that Mr. Suer stole $1.6 million, but Charles W. Anderson, the current president, cautioned that the figure was no doubt even larger because many records were missing.


"We feel the amount taken was much higher," Mr. Anderson said, adding that the charity will ask for a longer prison sentence.


He said the organization would pursue its two lawsuits in hopes of recovering some of the stolen money.


The guilty plea vindicated employees who tried to blow the whistle, first by telling a board member, who was removed after he raised questions about misuse of money, and by approaching newspapers.


In January 2001, The New York Times reported on the misuse of money, secret contracts and important issues that two board members withheld from the full board.


Donor reaction to the thefts and lack of oversight by community leaders was dramatic. The United Way of the National Capital Area lost its contract to run the $50 million-a-year workplace giving campaign for federal workers to a competing charity. Donations from others, like workers at companies in the area, plummeted to $18 million this year from $45 million in 2001.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 11:40am

Thinking of the people that money could have really helped...Mad


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 1:30pm
I've shaken my head for years that people would even think about contributing to United Way. Thirty or so years ago DH's and my employers would use what I considered coercion to get employees to give to United Way. The pressure to contribute was enormous. They even told us how much we were to contribute. We finally refused to participate.

This case appears to be an offshoot of the case in Michigan a couple of years ago when finance officer Jacquelyn Allen-MacGregor pleaded guilty to federal charges of check forgery and money laundering. She was supposed to have embezzled nearly $2 million which went to support her and her husband's horse farm. This investigation led to Suer being investigated when they found irregularies pertaining to him while investigating her.

Personally, my very favorite charity is MidOhio Food Bank. I send them a check. They send me a thank you note and that's it. They never ever try to solicit me for more money. My counterpart, DIL's mother who is a wonderfully wise woman, clued me in about them. She and I both hate it when you send a charity a contribution and then they use, what seems to us, most of the money writing letters back soliciting more money. Grrr.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 1:58pm

>"when you send a charity a contribution and then they use, what seems to us, most of the money writing letters back soliciting more money. Grrr."<


PBS do that in this area, about a letter a week. We give X amount a year & don't need reminding or calling. One smarty pants called when I was really busy, I said "I'm not interested right now", the answer really PMO, "That's too bad". I felt like reaching down the phone & smacking him.


My XDH's company made it an obligation to contribute to the UW too.


I can't believe

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 2:23pm

Your comment about PBS made me think of my MIL.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 2:31pm
Good idea! I'll have to try that.
cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 7:47pm
Smacking myself in the head! Why hasn't that occured to me? It's so simple. To think I often accuse DH of trying to complicate things that *I* think simple.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 8:10pm
LOL!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-09-2003
Sat, 03-06-2004 - 6:30am
The companies still use that tatic, I remember when I worked in retail four years ago, they pratically rammed it down our throats...I had a family to raise, I needed that little extra money. I think the companies got a big tax right off, when they had alot of employees contribute... and I got really made when I found out how much the directors "big shots" in the Boy or Girl scouts were paid, some over the 6 figures. I give to the local charitys, although not with money, because now I am a single parent and going to college full time, but I do give clothes and other nessecities.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sat, 03-06-2004 - 8:46am

>""big shots" in the Boy or Girl scouts were paid, some over the 6 figures."<


Same with the Red Cross. I stopped giving to them after 9/11 controversy, when $$$ was being funnelled to other areas that was given specifically

 


Photobucket&nbs