Donna Duffer, 54, former controller of the Palm Beach [Fla.] County CVB (PBCVB), surrendered to police Jan. 11 on charges of grand theft over $100,000 and organizing a scheme to defraud over $50,000, crimes punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Duffer was released on bond a few hours after surrendering.
According to the West Palm Beach Police Department, Duffer stole $1,579,469.80 from the PBCVB from June 2003 to October 2006 to aid her addiction to online video poker.
Police reports indicate Duffer stole the money by forging a total of 225 checks, with most of the money going to gambling and the rest to pay personal bills and for home repairs.
The money is not recoverable, according to police.
The stolen funds include $925,000 in withheld payroll taxes, an expense that is now the bureau’s responsibility to pay to the IRS.
Enid Atwater, vice president of corporate communications for the bureau, said the organization is working to recover the lost funds.
“We are aggressively moving forward on legal fronts to repay the money and seek recovery funds,” she said. “We have retained legal counsel and they are pursuing every avenue.”
Two outside audits of the bureau found that negligent management allowed the theft to occur and that a check of the organization’s bank statements could have prevented the incident.
The scandal began last fall when bank officials phoned Warren “Mac” McLaughlin, the bureau’s CEO, to inform him of financial discrepancies regarding the bureau’s books. When McLaughlin approached Duffer about the subject, she allegedly admitted to stealing money from the bureau to aid her online gambling addiction and was escorted out of her office.
Since then, McLaughlin and Lee Davis, vice president of finance for the CVB, have left the bureau.
County commissioners have given the privately run bureau until the end of February to reorganize or be absorbed as a county department.
“This is an isolated accounting mismanagement issue that is an internal issue that in no way negates the abilities of the people that work here. They have given us the opportunity to take a look at our marketing plan and identify and prioritize each department’s objectives and goals and fine-tune those,” Atwater said. “This is not a heated discussion, and I believe that the cool heads will prevail. I think that logically it could go either way, but I believe that the best course for Palm Beach County is that it [the CVB] would stay as a private entity that reports to the county.”
Jim Stuber, the bureau’s long time attorney, was appointed interim executive director. His first day was Jan. 16.
According to Atwater, the CVB is conducting a “very through national search” for a new leader and hopes to appoint one by this fall.
