Mpls. Officer & Father Accused Of Using Public Tax Dollars For Personal Gain
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The son and alleged co-conspirator of the man who headed Community Action Minneapolis made his initial appearance in federal court Friday.
Minneapolis police officer, Jordan Davis, and his father, William, are charged in a 16-count federal indictment with allegedly stealing tax dollars that were intended to help the city's poor.
William Davis headed the Community Action of Minneapolis program since 1990. Now, a for-sale sign out front of the building captures the troubles of a once vibrant charitable program.
The program was shut down by the state following an audit that revealed the agency misspent $800,000 between 2011 and 2013 in personal expenditures for Davis.
Local defense attorney, Joe Tamburino, said "people pay taxes and they want their money to go to good uses."
Tamburino doesn't represent either Davis, but has defended other clients who have been charged with fraud in federal court.
After reading the details revealed in the indictment, Tamburino said it doesn't look good for the defendants.
"If you can follow the money and the money is going for something that it should not be going for, like vacations and cars and girlfriends, then it's going to be very problematic for the defendants," Tamburino said.
William Davis ran the charitable program that provided home weatherization and energy assistance for the city's poorest residents.
But investigators say Davis instead siphoned money into a secret slush fund. Some of that money was used to pay his son Jordan, a Minneapolis police officer, $140,000 dollars for a job managing a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop. The shop was an arrangement with Community Action Minneapolis to give low-income residents job opportunities. Jordan Davis kept getting paid for four years after he left as the shop's manager, cashing more than 100 paychecks.
It is also alleged that Bill Davis spent lavishly on personal travel with his girlfriends, to places like Hawaii, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and Cancun.
"If you have someone keeping information from the board, as it appears here, then the board couldn't have found out about this," Tamburino said.
The executive director of the Charities Review Council, Kris Kewitsch, says the alleged scheme is why board directors need to have clear oversight and governance.
"As stewards of public funds we're required as organizations and boards to understand and manage and oversee that," Kewitsch said.
Jordan Davis has been placed on paid home assignment with the police department pending his court case.
William Davis is expected to plead not guilty when he appears in Federal Court on Monday.
