EVANSVILLE – Eighteen days after Regene Newman announced her departure as finance director for then-Vanderburgh County Attorney Nick Hermann for 2021, Hermann’s nonprofit for at-risk youth closed a checking account full of questionable expenses.
Four months later, a new one was opened at the same bank without notifying Newman’s successor of the closed account, current prosecutor Diana Moers told Courier & Press.
Newman was a secretary, checking account co-signer, and registered agent for the non-profit, now defunct, My Goals Inc. After their departure, My Goals made none of the large cash withdrawals and expenditures on women’s clothing stores, shopping sprees around town, and other questionable expenses that populated his previous bank account statements had.
It made three large charitable donations from the new account.
The banking activities are documented in Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union statements obtained from Moers and made available to the Courier & Press upon request.
More:Vanderburgh County Attorney Nick Hermann donated $25,000 in public funds to the nonprofit organization he runs
Moers, who succeeded Hermann in January, believes Hermann kept Newman’s successor a secret when they opened the second ETFCU account together on July 28, 2021. That was four months after the first account was closed on March 22nd. Newman’s resignation letter was dated March 4, according to prosecutors. She is now the executive director of Vanderburgh County Community Corrections.
“(Newman) is leaving, a few months go by and Nick (assistant prosecutor Jay Newton, who succeeded Newman as chief financial officer of the prosecutor’s office) walks across the sidewalk to the credit union and says, ‘Hey, we’re going to open a new account here more comfortable,” says Moers.
“Remarkably, he didn’t tell Jay about the old (ETFCU) account.”
Moers, who prosecuted financial crimes for the Indiana Secretary of State from 2010 to 2015, has her suspicions.
“Did anyone not want Jay to see what’s in that (first ETFCU account)?” she said. “There would be no reason to open a second (current account) at the same bank and not mention the previous one.”
From March 2016 to March 2021, My Goals’ first ETFCU checking account is littered with more than $14,000 in statements from 71 ATMs and bank withdrawals. They also show purchases in the thousands of dollars at fast-food restaurants, women’s clothing stores, hair and beauty salons, convenience stores, pharmacies, and supermarkets, as well as on out-of-town shopping sprees.
Whether Hermann or Newman personally carried out the transactions cannot be inferred from the bank statements. Then-Evansville Police Detective Brian Turpin registered as a co-owner of a bank account a few weeks after Hermann and Newman.
Newman and Turpin did not return any messages through My Goals, but Hermann issued a statement Friday afternoon saying his office had discovered “a pattern of unauthorized spending and withdrawals” in My Goals bank records over the past year and a full one criminal investigation requested.
“It is important that detectives can conduct their investigations based on facts and evidence,” wrote Hermann.
A balancing act
The ETFCU Downtown branch (now branded Liberty Federal Credit Union) is a stone’s throw from the courthouse where Hermann and Newton prosecuted co-accused criminals in the same office for a decade.
Moers said she learned from Newton that My Goals’ very first account since its inception in 2011 was with Crane Credit Union. She has not yet received statements from that account, which would have been maintained at a time when Newman was secretary of the non-profit organization and financial director of Hermann’s office.
Newton, who was not involved with My Goals or the prosecution’s financial affairs before 2021, said he assumed Hermann’s “more convenient” remark was a reference to the bank My Goals used – not the previous ETFCU account fuller questionable expenses. He doesn’t know exactly when he realized this account ever existed – but he can’t remember Hermann telling him about it the day they went to the ETFCU.
More:Questions remain about Vanderburgh District Attorney Nick Hermann’s charitable organization
Newton recalls not even knowing what My Goals was when he took on Newman’s duties.
But Newton – now not only Moers’ finance director but also her chief of staff and assistant district attorney – is not as critical of Hermann as his new boss is. Newton was hired by Hermann and then worked for him for 10 years. Moers defeated Hermann in a Republican primary last year. Part of their campaign rationale was that he needed to be replaced.
Newton walks a tightrope as he talks about his former boss.
No, Newton doesn’t recall Hermann ever telling him about the ETFCU checking account, which was filled with questionable expenses.
“But (Hermann) may remember differently when he talks to you,” he said.
‘oh crap’
Newton recalls that in July, he and Hermann went to the ETFCU with a $5,000 check in hand — he can’t remember where the money came from — to prop up the $1,983.36 the original ETFCU account had , when it closed on March 22nd. Newman had announced her intention to resign on March 4, but her resignation did not take effect until April.
Statements show the new ETFCU account opened on July 28 with $6,983.36 – the original balance plus the $5,000.
A month later, $10,000 was received and $10,000 was made as a charitable donation to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a national non-profit organization that says it is dedicated to “the building, assembly and delivery of world-class bunk beds for children in need and… dedicated to families”.
Newton acknowledged that Hermann had asked him to take the $10,000 in forfeiture proceeds from seizures of suspects’ cash, cars, real estate, and other assets. Seven months later, Courier & Press reported that Hermann’s office made five separate payments of $5,000 from his forfeiture fund to My Goals between 2018 and 2020.
Hermann pointed out at the time that the Indiana Code allows prosecutors to establish, staff, and support a “youth mentoring program” like My Goals. The law states that prosecutors can “receive and spend charitable contributions, funds, and federal, state, local, or private grants” for the organizations.
However, the newspaper reported that the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council’s guidelines for issuing forfeiture funds did not include giving to nonprofits as a permitted use, and Evansville Police Department officials said they did not give forfeiture money or public funds to their affiliated nonprofits .
Newton recalls thinking, “Oops.”
“I had seen many times before where that was done and I had no reason to believe that wasn’t right,” he said. “I remember reading the article (The Courier & Press) and thinking, ‘Oh crap, I know I’ve done that at least once.’
It hasn’t happened since, Newton said, and the county auditor’s records confirm it. But then the auditor also doesn’t show in his records the $10,000 transfer of forfeiture funds to My Goals that Newton mentioned. He said he sent the necessary paperwork.
My goals would continue in the final weeks of 2021 to raise $5,000 for law enforcement’s Halloween event “Say Boo to Drugs” at Bosse Field and $2,500 for the Hadi Shriners Transportation Fund for patients and their families donate. There were no cash withdrawals, shopping sprees, or expensive trips to nail salons or beauty stores.
Newton is proud of these donations even though he acted as Treasurer rather than decision maker.
“That was me,” he said.
looking ahead
Enter Moers, who took office in January.
Newton recalls that about 10 months earlier, when the Courier & Press published the first in a series of articles about the forfeiture money Hermann’s office had given to My Goals, he and then-Counsel in the Chief Prosecutor, Kevin McDaniel, realized that they cared about the nonprofit Organization had to view records. But they didn’t have the bank statements that Moers would eventually get from the ETFCU.
They asked Newman, who had left the prosecution a year earlier, to produce them.
“It took me a while to get those,” Newton said.
Newman ended up dropping some records. Newton thinks some of them may have come from the earliest My Goals bank account at Crane Credit Union.
One look, Newton said, and he and McDaniel knew there was a problem.
“It didn’t take long for us to realize it didn’t look right,” he said.
McDaniel did not respond for comment, but Evansville Police Chief Billy Bolin told Courier & Press that a financial crimes investigator referred McDaniel to the FBI last year over alleged My Goals embezzlement of funds. Hermann declined to confirm Friday that his office had contacted the FBI.
After taking office in January, Moers said she was determined to find out for herself what happened. After all, Hermann said a year ago that My Goals was “not my charity” and “something our office runs.”
Because prosecutors did not have online access to the nonprofit’s former ETFCU account, Moers personally went to bank branches to obtain as much of My Goals’ financial records as possible. She walked away with stacks of printouts.
My Goals may be administratively wound up, but right now his current checking account with the ETFCU has $4,582.98 available, the same amount as in late 2021 when the nonprofit cut its $2,500 check to the Hadi Shriners Transportation Fund.
“No activity during this reporting period,” the monthly ETFCU reports now say.
Moers said she will donate the $4,582.98 to a charity yet to be named.
“It will be a local non-profit organization whose businesses are directly related to the office — such as helping crime victims,” the prosecutor said.
What about expired money? The Vanderburgh County Attorney’s share of a forfeiture fund shared among local law enforcement agencies was $76,122 in 2021 and $81,473 last year. This money will also be spent “directly related to office supplies,” Moers said.
“It’s really important for me to sort out the issues so we can move on and focus on what we’re here for,” she said.
