Police won't pursue charges against former Kids Voting treasurer
Law enforcement officials say they will not pursue charges against a man who recently admitted taking more than $2,000 from a Juneau nonprofit group.
The board of directors for Kids Voting decided last week not to press charges against Shawn Blumenshine, the group's former treasurer. Blumenshine, 23, admitted in a letter to the board to taking $2,020 from the group's bank account.
Board spokeswoman Betsy Brenneman has said the board wanted the money back right away. Blumenshine repaid the money after being contacted by the board's attorney.
The decision not to notify law enforcement authorities prompted two board members to resign in protest and raises the question of what responsibility a nonprofit has to report alleged crimes in its organization.
Capt. Tom Porter said Juneau police will not look into the matter because no one filed a complaint.
"We can't investigate a complaint without a complainant," said Porter. "The matter seems to have been remedied between the parties. It's seldom the police would intercede and investigate without the victims in the case filing a formal complaint, unless the (district attorney) is interested in pursuing a case."
Assistant District Attorney Sue McLean said the district attorney's office most likely would not take any action unless the victimized group filed a complaint.
Typically, McLean said, law enforcement agencies will pursue charges in a violent crime with or without the victim's cooperation, but will not necessarily do that with property crimes.
"A victim cannot decline to press charges in a case like that (violent crime)," said McLean. "However, with a corporate entity or business - which nonprofits resemble - actions in those cases more closely resemble civil actions ... There are a tremendous amount of civil remedies they could pursue instead of the criminal route."
Assistant Attorney General Dan Branch, who handles cases involving charitable organizations, said he didn't know of a statute mandating nonprofit groups to report alleged criminal activity such as embezzlement.
But he said nonprofit groups have a fiduciary responsibility to their membership to ensure that collected money goes to the cause they represent.
"If they are able to recover the money without reporting the matter, they've upheld the trust obligation they have to society and their membership," Branch said.
Putnam Barber, president of the Evergreen State Society, a Seattle-based resource center for nonprofits, said boards tend to be lenient in situations like those because often the costs of litigation and loss of public credibility is higher than what they will get back.
"The few boards brave enough to come forward with a complaint usually do so because they find it's very unlikely they will get their money back any other way," Barber said.
"But other than publicly hurting the credibility of the group and ruining the reputation of the person who stole the money, you can't probably get more than that," he said. "It often costs more than what was stolen to litigate."
The Alaska Folk Festival in Juneau decided to prosecute an incident in 1999 as a crime.
Jim Grammel, who became festival treasurer after volunteer treasurer Jim Demers resigned in 1999, noticed inaccuracies in the books, Grammel said.
"We (the board) talked about it and decided we could do nothing, which seemed irresponsible to our membership, or we could pursue criminal action," said Grammel. "Obviously in our case there was a clear intent to thieve and steal. ... We felt like the only way to get the money back was to pursue it through the courts."
Prosecutors accused Demers of stealing nearly $13,000 from the group's account over four years. Demers admitted taking some money, but said it was far less.
Demers was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail. A judge ordered him to pay about $16,300 in restitution.
But the state Court of Appeals ruled that Demers didn't have to reimburse the folk festival $5,000 for the time volunteers spent documenting his crime.
Grammel said he believes the Kids Voting board probably made the best decision it could for its membership. He said, "You have to do what's best for the membership. At the same time you can't just sweep things under the rug and pretend they didn't happen."
He said part of the benefit of reporting incidents like this or making them public is so that it doesn't happen to other nonprofits.
"So often nobody wants to say anything because they don't want people to think there is anything wrong within the group," Grammel said. "But is a little embarrassment over someone stealing $2,000 better or worse than breaking the silence and admitting something happened so it doesn't happen to someone else?"