MADISON (WKOW) – A criminal complaint filed in Dane County Court Wednesday detailed alleged embezzlement by a former vice president at the Goodman Community Center in Madison.
The complaint claims Dewayne Powell, 42, spent just over $600,000 of the center’s money on foreign currency transitions, gambling at Ho-Chunk casinos in Madison and Baraboo and on various other unauthorized personal expenses. He faces two counts of uttering a forgery and seven more of theft. All are felonies.
27 News attempted to contact Powell. A call to a phone number associated with him repeatedly dropped without going to voicemail.
Hundreds of unauthorized purchases were charged to Goodman’s accounts between April 2021 and June 2024.
In the last month of the improper financial activity, Letesha Nelson, the community center’s president and executive director, received a notification from Lake Ridge Bank. The notification was a flag on a check the center had written and someone had cashed.
Flags on checks are common. They are usually a sign that the recipient tried to use mobile deposit but the bank’s computer system encountered a problem in the process. However, when Nelson examined the check she saw it was made out to Powell and was not signed by either of the only two people authorized to sign checks in the organization.
The $400 check prompted Nelson to check various other checks and Goodman accounts. She found a long list of unauthorized purchases. Many were for expenses at Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison and Ho-Chunk Gaming Wisconsin Dells. Others were for use of foreign currency.
The complaint alleges the purchases benefited Powell or the accounts were overseen by him. Authorities claim to have supporting interviews and documentation from the community center’s financial institution, Powell’s girlfriend and Ho-Chunk Gaming.
Goodman fired Powell and launched a forensic audit of its accounts.
“As a community organization with 70 years of service to our families, we are heartbroken by this situation,” Nelson said in a written statement. “This has been a violation of our trust and a breach of the goodness of those who support Goodman. Rest assured, we will move forward together in strength.”
The organization is promising change as a result of the ordeal.
“With the support of our finance and audit committee, we made internal changes to our financial policies and processes to ensure that the integrity and security of our finances were protected,” Nelson said. “We also immediately retained a forensic accounting firm, who completed their own investigation of all of Goodman Community Center’s financials, concluding the sophisticated impropriety involved one individual who misused money for personal expenses. These findings also show that no grant money or restricted donor funds were in effect used to cover these fraudulent purchases.”
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