Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson spoke on several topics in July 2018 at the Twin Cities Rotary.
The state Attorney General's Office has sued a Pierce County veterans nonprofit and its leadership, alleging that it misused hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Pierce County Superior Court accused the operations manager of Veterans Independent Enterprises of Washington, Rosemary Hibbler, of misappropriating the nonprofit's funds for personal gain.
"She has forged checks in her favor, initiated large transfers of funds into unknown bank accounts, failed to pay contractors and vendors, withdrawn thousands from ATMs at casinos, and endorsed checks to cash that collectively total more than $160,000," the lawsuit says. "Coupling Hibbler's misconduct with the Board of Director's near total abdication of oversight has led to imminent disaster for a once-valuable nonprofit that served the public interest."
Hibbler argues that the nonprofit was struggling when she came on board.
"We didn't have money for me to steal," she told The News Tribune Wednesday. "... This has snowballed into something that is such a lie."
The court has appointed an interim receiver to manage the nonprofit and its funds. Hibbler said the receiver is terminating her and that her last day is Friday.
The lawsuit accuses VIEW of violating the Charitable Solicitation Act and the Consumer Protection Act.
The organization was started in 1988 to obtain housing and jobs for veterans in need. The focus is veterans who are underemployed, recovering from addiction or who have a criminal record, Attorney General Bob Ferguson's Office said in a press release Wednesday.
"VIEW's once-successful program has fallen into disarray and has failed to provide even basic support to its residents and employees," the press release said. "Sometime between 2010 and 2014, VIEW began suffering from significant neglect and mismanagement."
At some point, only two board members remained, the board stopped holding regular meetings, and the organization ran without a formal budget for years, the lawsuit alleges.
The two board members hired Hibbler as the operations manager several years ago. She had convictions for 10 counts of felony theft or forgery from 2007 to 2011.
The board members, Donald Hutt and Gary Peterson, are named in the lawsuit.
The Attorney General's Office alleges Hibbler used the nonprofit's debit card to take at least $26,000 from casino ATMs. It also accused her of paying personal IRS debt, her defense attorney, bail, cable bills and $11,000 in rent and late fees for her home.
"Despite many warnings of this conduct, including multiple investigative reports on King 5, VIEW's two board members continued to employ Hibbler and approved her many illegal purchases on VIEW's account," the press release says.
She also allegedly deposited thousands of dollars from the nonprofit's bank account to her own.
"The board routinely gave Hibbler blank checks to use to pay for VIEW's expenses, which she endorsed and made out to cash," the press release said. "Over a period of several months, she used these checks to take out more than $166,000 in cash. There is no evidence this money was used to pay any of VIEW's expenses."
Asked about those allegations, Hibbler told The News Tribune: "Everything I did was with the permission of the board. ... There are some, yes, that were paid to my personal bills with the permission of the board, after months and months of not being paid."
She said the organization was $500,000 in debt when she came on board, that she worked long hours and that some months she was underpaid or not paid at all.
Hibbler said the nonprofit's expenses were $297,000 more than its revenue last year. Its annual budget is roughly $1 million, tax records show.
"All I've done is try to save a company, and I did not get any help when I asked for it," she said.
Hibbler said she helped reestablish the organization's status as a 501(c)(3).
"I made personal sacrifices, probably naively, and now I'm being painted to be this villain," she said.
The lawsuit argues she has been accused of misappropriating funds elsewhere as well.
"Before she was hired to VIEW, Hibbler was fired multiple times over allegations that she misappropriated her previous employers' funds," the Attorney General's Office press release said. "One of her former employers, another nonprofit called Sober Solutions, sued her over financial mismanagement."
Hibbler said the $200,000 default judgment in that case was because she wasn't able to make it to court around the time that her father passed away.
"I never stole any money from them," she said. "I never mismanaged anything for them."
The Attorney General's Office alleges that transitional housing for veterans became dilapidated while Hibbler was in charge.
She argued she donned a respirator mask and cleaned up mold at one property herself in July, of which she took photos.
"I personally did what I was supposed to do to make their living conditions safe," she said.
The state also said the nonprofit laid off its staff in February 2018 and asked them to volunteer instead.
Hibbler said, when asked, she told them they could volunteer. No one was made to do so, she argued.
A class action settled for $150,000 with current and former employees earlier this month who were underpaid, unpaid or paid late, the Attorney General's Office said.
Hibbler, 51, said she's a veteran herself. She was a supply specialist in the Army from 1986 to 1992, she said.
