RICHMOND, Va. -- The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to prosecute anyone related to the collapse of the EnRichmond Foundation, according to the Acting Public Affairs Specialist for the FBI Richmond Leslie Chappell McLane.
McLane said the FBI’s Richmond bureau turned over its investigation findings to the Justice Department.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on why they decided not to press charges.
Eighty-six non-profit partner groups housed their money with EnRichmond before its collapse.
EnRichmond acted as an umbrella organization and allowed the groups to be tax-exempt and fundraise as a non-profit.
When EnRichmond dissolved, the partner groups were unable to access nearly $500,000 of their money.
One of those groups, the Richmond Tree Stewards, lost thousands of dollars.
“We had $29,000 in our account, $15,000 of which had been deposited just in the months before EnRichmond closed down,” Dana Marshall, President of the Richmond Tree Stewards, said.
EnRichmond partner handbooks reviewed by CBS 6 explicitly said partner funds were not to be commingled with general EnRichmond funds and could not be used for anything other than their intended purpose.
But, according to internal emails reviewed by CBS 6, EnRichmond had commingled the money for years and used partner dollars to make up deficits.
“It's infuriating,” Marshall said. “Very clearly lines were crossed.”
Both the FBI’s Richmond bureau and the Virginia Attorney General’s Office launched investigations after the collapse, but a spokesperson for the AG’s office said when the FBI took over the AG’s office just ended up assisting the FBI and did not do a separate investigation.
“We are disappointed. We would have liked to have seen accountability,” Marshall said about the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute.
CBS 6 has tried multiple times over the past year to contact the long-time Executive Director of EnRichmond John Sydnor, as well as the Finance Manager, Beth Captain, to ask them questions about the missing money, but we have not heard back.
At this point, Marshall said the Richmond Tree Stewards are cutting their losses and moving forward.
“We’ve moved on, and we are still here to do good works for the city,” Marshall said.
Do you have thoughts about the EnRichmond situation? Share your voice with the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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