The Food Bank of Southern California – a grocery and meal distribution center serving hundreds of pantries in Long Beach and South Los Angeles – has closed amid a state investigation over a possible multimillion-dollar fraud and embezzlement scheme, according to state officials. and a non-profit framework.
The closure is expected to severely impact thousands of low-income families, seniors and homeless people who rely on food distribution sites for their nutritional needs.
Brian Weaver, executive director of the food bank, said he suspended operations and laid off about two dozen employees after losing funding when state police and investigators served a search warrant within the Long Beach-based organization on September 26.
In addition to deleting documents and records, Weaver said state officials took pallets of food stored in a warehouse and transported them to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
Weaver called the investigation a “black eye” on the nearly 50-year-old nonprofit, which serves about 2 million people.
Weaver said the food bank provides groceries and meals to about 300 pantries in Long Beach and South Los Angeles, at least half of which are in churches.
“Rents are high in Los Angeles,” he said. “People who go to our food pantries probably save $150 on their grocery bill and that’s a little more money they have for rent, so people are really dependent on our food. And I feel bad for them, as well as for our 25 employees who work poorly and now find themselves unemployed.”
David May, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, said they received more than 1 million pounds of nonperishable produce, meats and frozen goods.
May said at least 60 new agencies — from faith-based food pantries to nonprofit service groups — have been brought on board to ensure those affected by the shutdown have access to food donations.
Last week’s raid wasn’t the first time authorities had set foot inside the Southern California Food Bank’s offices. Weaver said social services investigators spent three days in mid-September examining the nonprofit’s accounting records, before returning two weeks later with a warrant.
Scott Murray, a spokesman for the California Department of Human Services, said the agency was “conducting an investigation into the food bank’s use of government funds.”
He said more details would be provided once the investigation was completed.
Weaver, who became chief executive in March, said the warrant sought documents and information relating to his predecessor — Jeanne Cooper, who was suspended by the board the same month — as well as a former board member of directors and their spouse. He declined to name the person.
Weaver said the warrant suggests investigators are looking into possible fraud and embezzlement — allegations he suspected during his previous two years on the organization’s board.
Shortly after taking Cooper’s job, Weaver said he received weekly payments of $5,000 from a vendor who apparently provided refrigerated storage space for the food bank.
Weaver found the payments suspicious because he was not aware of any weekly accounts with any vendor. He said he checked with the warehouse manager to see if there had been any traffic between the warehouse and the address listed for the cold storage site, but found none.
Mystified, Weaver said he drove there, only to discover it was a post office box.
He said documented payments to the vendor date back to 2016 and total more than $2 million.
Weaver said he launched an internal investigation shortly afterward, hiring a forensic accounting firm that he said uncovered other questionable payments totaling millions.
“This was a systematic fraud that had been going on for decades,” he said.
Auditors were finalizing their findings, he said, when the state launched its investigation. Weaver said he plans to give a copy of the audit report to authorities.
Cooper could not be reached for comment Friday, but in an email response to NBCLos Angelesshe denied misusing the funds.
“I did not use any funds for personal purposes,” she wrote in an email to the station.
Instead, Cooper alleged that other board members pressured her to “pay them off” and that she reported it to authorities.
“I have alerted the State of California Department of Social Services, the State Attorney General…to review the board’s practices,” she wrote.
Even though the future of the food bank remains murky, Weaver said he hopes the state will allow him to continue running the organization and that people will forgive the nonprofit for violating the public confidence.
“I want [the public] understand that this food bank has been around for 49 years,” he said. “And we have served a lot of people and done a lot of good over those 49 years. »
