WASHINGTON —
Two men, who once served as directors at a now-defunct D.C. nonprofit, have pleaded guilty to stealing at least $155,000 combined from their organization's local children's scholarship fund.
Former Executive Director Edward Davies and the former Director of Operations and Finance Earl Hamilton, who worked at the nonprofit organization formerly known as The DC Trust, each pleaded guilty Wednesday to one felony charge for stealing the nonprofit’s funds.
According to the plea documents, from at least November 2015 to February 2016, Davies and Hamilton perpetrated a scheme that involved using DC Trust credit cards and a check card to make hundreds of personal purchases.
Instead of money going towards providing children with scholarships, the two spent funds on their own meals, car repairs, and personal travel for family and friends, according to plea documents; funds that the D.C. government and the U.S. Department of Education gave the nonprofit.
In total, Davies admitted to stealing at least $111,000 and Hamilton admitted to stealing at least $44,000.
Davies, a 51-year-old Columbia, Maryland resident, and Hamilton, a 53-year-old who now resides in Riviera Beach, Florida, both pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to credit card fraud.
The DC Trust was a nonprofit organization created in 1999 to connect philanthropists, government leaders, youth advocates and representatives from the business community in order to support programs to benefit children in D.C. The organization was dissolved in late 2016.
The pair will be sentenced on April 7, 2023, and the plea agreements call for both defendants to make restitution for their criminal acts.
The D.C. Office of the Inspector General, the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and the U.S. Department of Education Office of the Inspector General continue to investigate this case.
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