The former president of a prominent Atlanta neighborhood association has been ordered to pay back $78,000 he admitted to stealing from the group, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
Robert Dwyane Wood, 34, paid $20,000 in restitution to the Cabbagetown Initiative Community Development Corp. after entering a guilty plea this week on 40 counts of theft by taking by a fiduciary.
A Fulton County Superior Court judge ordered the former president and treasurer of the group Tuesday to pay an additional $25,000 within 90 days with the remaining $33,000 paid during his probation.
The thefts were so extensive that victims of a 2008 tornado that hit Atlanta did not receive funds raised to help them recover. Survival of the group’s annual “Chomp and Stomp” festival also was threatened, the group’s leaders said.
Cabbagetown Initiative is a non-profit wing of the Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association.
Katherine Dirga, current president of Cabbagetown Initiative, said the group suspects more money might be missing but that it could only document that at least $78,000 was taken.
While the community felt a sense of betrayal and distrust during the episode, Dirga said it has made the community and its leadership much stronger.
“We have really tightened up our bylaws,” Dirga said. “We also have improved our transparency so that everybody sees the financial statements.”
In the summer of 2009, then-president Michael McPherson went to police about suspicions that thousands of dollars raised to help victims of a tornado and money raised from the 2008 Chomp and Stomp festival were missing.
Wood, who preceded McPherson as president and treasurer, had been responsible for keeping track of funds disbursed to the tornado victims, McPherson said. The battered homeowners, however, began complaining that they were not getting any assistance.
When the group began planning for the 2009 Chomp and Stomp, they found proceeds from the previous year’s festival had been depleted. The festival provides the bulk of the money to the neighborhood’s nonprofit corporation. The money, for example, helped build Cabbagetown Park.
The group questioned Wood for months and conducted an internal investigation of bank records, shocked at what they discovered, McPherson said. Wood was arrested in November 2009.
Prosecutors said Wood wrote checks to himself and used the group’s check card to pay for personal expenses, such as bills and social activities.
“It’s been a long time coming,” McPherson said Thursday of Wood's conviction and sentencing.
“It’s just senseless, and it should never have happened in the first place,” McPherson said. “He was friend and neighbor to most of the people involved and he should have known better.”
In addition to restitution, Wood was also sentenced to 20 years’ probation and 2,000 hours of community service. He must also pay a fine of $5,000 and faces strict credit limitations.
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