ST. GEORGE — A former treasurer of a homeowner’s association in Hurricane reportedly admitted to stealing more than $153,000 from the community’s main account — but a recent audit revealed the losses were significantly higher.
St. George News learned of the alleged theft after receiving a series of messages from a reader advising that the money was taken by Sharon Gordon, who formerly served as the treasurer of the Lava Bluff Owner’s Association, the governing body of the Lava Bluff Mobile Home Park on North 3880 West in Hurricane. The 55 and older community consists of approximately 180 units, a majority of which are manufactured homes.
Tim Mullicane, a resident at Lava Bluff, said he started to notice irregularities sometime after 2015. He became more suspicious during his wife’s tenure as an assistant to the treasurer, during which she was denied access to any bank records or other banking documents, he said.
The treasurer eventually stopped providing an accounting of where the monies were going during monthly meetings and failed to provide any financial or account documentation, even when asked, Mullicane said.
When he went to the board with his suspicions, he said it took the executive board more than three months to address the situation.
They finally confronted Gordon in February, who allegedly admitted to the theft. Shortly thereafter, the residents were provided “meager” information regarding the situation, Mullicane said.
It was during one of these meetings that HOA vice president Diana Waterson told residents they had an itemized statement of all of the monies taken, but after multiple requests for the documents went unheeded, he said, the residents were left to wonder how the board arrived at the amount taken. Lacking was itemization showing an accounting of the withdrawals, dates and so on.
The money that is now gone was earmarked for new road paving, which is sorely needed, Mullicane said, as well as new furniture for the clubhouse located in the center of the complex.
Mullicane also reported the incident to the Hurricane Police Department, but on April 24, he received an update from authorities advising they had received a call from the president of the Lava Bluff Homeowners Association, Gary Marsik, who told authorities the incident was being handled internally.
St. George News reached out in May to Hurricane Police Officer Dan Raddatz who said they did receive a call reporting the incident, but when detectives followed up on the report, they were told the situation was being handled “in house” and that no charges were being pursued at that point.
Raddatz said detectives are ready to conduct an investigation should the board change its mind.
In the meantime, a new treasurer, Brian Fast, was elected at the end of March to serve on the board. Mullicane then requested a copy of the itemized statement listing the losses, since his prior requests went unanswered.
That is when Mullicane learned that no such document ever existed, he said.
St. George News reached out to Fast, who said as soon as he was voted in as treasurer, he began the task of “digging into” the bank statements to see what went wrong.
He also said the loss amount of $153,100 came directly from the past treasurer, Gordon, who was confronted about the missing funds in February. During the meeting, he said Gordon was asked how much she took from the accounts in total, which is when she wrote the amount listed and then “slid the paper across the desk” to Waterson, the vice president, who he said took Gordon’s word for it and went from there.
Then, during the board meeting, he said Waterson reportedly told the residents that the board was working from an itemized statement that outlined an accounting of the monies taken. But in reality, Fast said, no such document existed – an issue that became problematic when the residents started to request copies of the document.
When St. George News reached out to Waterson for comment Wednesday, she said she “had nothing to say” and terminated the call.
Fast said a lien filed against Gordon on April 1 was in the amount of $161,399, which was the original amount the former treasurer admitted to taking, he said, plus interest and attorney fees. He said the lien was filed prior to the audit as a means to secure at least a portion of the money by attaching Gordon’s property as collateral, “to make sure we got at least some of the money back.”
He said from there, he reached out to an accounting firm in St. George to conduct an external audit to obtain an accurate accounting of how much was taken from the accounts. The audit was certified on or about June 25 and revealed that the losses were much higher than what Gordon originally had quoted.
In fact, Fast said, the amount taken since 2015 was more than $249,000, through a series of checks and transfers from the primary account that held the HOA fees, which were then deposited into four separate accounts. Fast suspected this was done so the money would be difficult to track, he said.
Additionally, the audit showed numerous checks that appeared to have been forged, since the checks required two signatures, one of which was the president’s signature that appeared on many of the checks, but upon further inspection, it was clear the signature did not match his signature.
St. George News reached out to the president of the Lava Bluff Homeowners Association, Marsik, who resigned from the board on June 18, but requests for comment have gone unanswered.
Once the audit was ordered, Fast said he then contacted authorities in Hurricane to make sure the incident was reported, but the investigation was put on hold until the audit could be completed.
Now that the audit has been certified, he said the board “intends to pursue criminal charges, since they now have an accurate accounting of what was actually stolen.”
St. George News has reached out to Gordon for comment, but the inquiries have gone unanswered at the time of this report.
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