The state of Ohio has filed suit charging the trustees of the Central Ohio Association for Childrens Higher Education (COACHE) skipped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bingo proceeds.
The lawsuit seeks to recover the charitable funds allegedly embezzled by the trustees of the Springfield, Ohio non-profit corporation.
Not only did the leaders of this organization violate the law, they hurt their community by failing to meet their charitable goals. As a result, hundreds of thousands of dollars that should have been used to help kids have been wasted, said Attorney General Marc Dann.
According to information contained in the complaint, COACHE was originally established in 1994 to target the young people who are at risk to fall through the cracks of the normal system for higher education. The suit charges that COACHE operated a lucrative bingo game but made only nominal charitable contributions to the community.
Under Ohio law, proceeds from charitable gaming must be directed toward specific charitable purposes. The lawsuit contends that in one recent year COACHE provided only $6,000 in charitable support despite generating more than $3 million in bingo revenues.
More than $844,000 is unaccounted for and believed to have been diverted to personal use by the organizations leaders. Last week, the COACHE Board of Trustees agreed to surrender its bingo license to the Ohio Attorney General.
The suit maintains that the trustees under-reported bingo revenue, over-reported expenses, and converted bingo proceeds for their own salaries, cell phones and credit cards. Additionally, the suit alleges that the organization falsified filings with the Ohio Attorney Generals office and the Internal Revenue Service.
The trustees have violated their fiduciary obligations and should be required to return all the funds that otherwise would have been used to support the charitable purpose, said Dann. Were asking the court to require the defendants to return the inappropriate funds they received and pay restitution, interest, compensatory and punitive damages and civil penalties.
