kimmers318
10-09-2006, 07:06 AM
After thinking about things WAY too much the last few days, I realize that I need to get something off my chest and seek others opinions on some moral, ethical and legal issues that have been dropped into my lap and I am being forced to deal with.
As some of you know, I am very involved in my local veteran club. I am the vice president/membership chairperson for our auxiliary unit, and also a part of the riders club. I have been the vice president for almost 10 years now, and although on occasion the responsibility can be heavy...it is a wonderful organization that does a lot of good, and I am proud to be a part of it. Most of my family has been involved in one way or another at some point. Approximately 5 years ago, our treasurer, a wonderful woman who had kept our financial books pristine for over 15 years was taken from us by cancer. Another lady took the treasurer position over temporarily and made such a mess of things that we took our books back and they were handed over to me. I straightened out all of the discrepancies and took care of all of our financial business for almost 2 years on top of the responsibilities I already had. 2 years ago another person was nominated to take over the treasurer position because I was really way too swamped to hold 2 offices, one being a dual office already. That person was my sister. I expressed my feelings to our officers on the nomination, withheld from the voting, and let it go at that. Although not as organized as I was, she still did an okay job with things, and the president and myself just picked up the slack to make sure deposits were made on time etc. My sister basically was just a bookkeeper needing to log all deposits/checks and balance it monthly with the statement, and report to us at our monthly meetings. We normally do not have meetings in the summer with so much else going on, and if any decisions need to be made myself and the president make phone calls to get authorization for expenditures and turn the receipts over to our treasurer, my sister. (Yes, I know, I keep repeating my sister....it is a big part of my dilemma and I feel the need to stress "my sister") A little background on my relationship with this sister might be in order to help everyone understand some things at this point. Her and I seldom see eye to eye....we don't agree on most things, and probably wouldn't even be friends if we weren't related. She is married to a man who is terminally ill with cirrhosis and hepatitis b, and he won't quit drinking to help his health. She is also an alcoholic. Several years back we had a falling out over another issue where she believed something another female said that was VERY derogatory to me, the falling out ended in a physical fight between the 2 of us, and not speaking to each other for 8 months. When we came to be friends again the motto was "blood is thicker than water", she had every right to be upset with me if what was said was true...but she should have come to ME first and dealt with me. There isn't a whole lot of respect for my sister because of her lifestyle, and how it affects my 13 yr old niece...but she has a right to choose to live her life and we agree to disagree, but the one thing that has come about from our rocky past and her actions is the fact that I won't even loan her so much as $20...if her family is hungry I will take her to the grocery store....but I won't give her $$$ because it will just be spent on alcohol. There is alot of that "unconditional" love because she is my sister....I can't stop loving her because I don't like her too much.
Last Friday morning I got a phone call from our auxiliary president that she had opened the bank statement when it came in the mail, which she always has done periodically, and is fully authorized to do so, and that there were some issues on the statement that she wanted me to look into. When I got to the club and was shown the statement it had 5 checks totally $1498 that had been written to my sister, in one months time, that we had not authorized nor signed. (our account requires 2 signatures on each check) The signatures were my name, and the presidents name...but they were not our signatures, they were forged. My sister was asked to bring the checkbook and ledger to the club immediately for an audit. I went to the bank to freeze the account and ask for a statement showing activity from the September statement up until that day...what it showed was a balance of $7.61. I then asked for a statement for July and August...on July 6th we had a balance of $2816. The first thing my sister accused me of was not sticking by family and helping her to keep the fact that she "borrowed" (her words) from our business account because she was out of work the month of August and had to do it to pay her bills. She has no concept of the fact that even if I wanted to keep it a secret I couldn't...I wasn't the one who discovered the issue. She said some really not nice things about me not helping family. She did finally bring the books to our president, who started trying to audit them this evening in the hopes of keeping me as far away from the situation as possible. She is not having much luck balancing it, although she has found 3 more checks totalling $652 written to my sister, and with our signatures forged. The club would like to keep all of this underwraps and give her a chance to pay back the $$$, but even if she can come up with such a large sum in the next 10 days (she claims she is waiting for a loan approval to pay us back) we cannot not report this to the other officers or we are just as guilty. Once it is reported, I am sure the information is liable to leak out and the rumors will fly. Already people are questioning the fact that I was at the club 3 times on Friday....behind closed doors with the president...and seen at the bank twice by another auxiliary member. It then came to light that she has written $700 in bad checks to the canteen at the club and has not yet tried to make good on what she calls a mistake. The most logical course of action is to file a report against her for the forgery..at that point the bank takes over, investigates the fraud and reimburses us our $$$ since they cashed checks that were illegally signed. But, that cannot be done without a police report. The president does not have a problem...even though she is a long time friend of my sister, following the legal course of action, our 2nd vice is a dear sweet lady who although won't have a problem with the legalities is not capable of auditing the checkbook to have all our Ps & Qs covered so to speak and to obtain the proof of just how much my sister stole. Our secretary just had major back surgery and is still bedridden. That leaves myself and the president. Technically, 2 people (or more) should participate in the audit, ensuring that no discrepancies are "overlooked" for friendship reasons, so the responsibility is back in my lap. I am really caught between a rock and a hard place here....already my mom has jumped my case wanting to know what was going on with my sister because of her erratic behavior lately and is pissed at me that I won't tell her what I do know. My father is terminally ill and not doing so well, and this is something that would break his heart to have to take to his grave. He is a very proud man who expects his children to behave in a manner that would not shame him or our family name. As much as I wish I didn't have to be a part of any of this, I feel obligated to at least do what I can to balance the books and document my findings in case the auxiliary does decide to pursue legal action. I feel that I have to do what is right, regardless of my personal feelings, if it was anyone else I would have already filed a police report. But, I am torn by the fact that my actions will destroy my sister and her family (which of course is my family), and she may even end up doing jail time. Depending on how the charges play out, she could very well lose her career...busdrivers don't get much work when they have had felony charges on them. The club wants to do everything they can to minimalize the damage to me, but the fact remains that MY signature was also forged...and if asked to testify to that fact, I cannot lie about it. If I refuse to testify to that not being my signature than it could be construed as I authorized my sisters personal loans from our business account...and I am just as guilty of theft.
Give me some feedback as to how you think I should proceed....if I don't do the audit, there is only one other person who can right now, and she is already lost. If I do do the audit, I am the bad man who sent her sister up the river. I have family obligations to stand by my family and help them in anyway I can...and have always done so, but I also have moral and ethical obligations to protect a non profit organization that I am the vice president of. Either way, I hope to keep my father from finding any of this out...he doesn't deserve to die knowing his daughter is a thief.
As some of you know, I am very involved in my local veteran club. I am the vice president/membership chairperson for our auxiliary unit, and also a part of the riders club. I have been the vice president for almost 10 years now, and although on occasion the responsibility can be heavy...it is a wonderful organization that does a lot of good, and I am proud to be a part of it. Most of my family has been involved in one way or another at some point. Approximately 5 years ago, our treasurer, a wonderful woman who had kept our financial books pristine for over 15 years was taken from us by cancer. Another lady took the treasurer position over temporarily and made such a mess of things that we took our books back and they were handed over to me. I straightened out all of the discrepancies and took care of all of our financial business for almost 2 years on top of the responsibilities I already had. 2 years ago another person was nominated to take over the treasurer position because I was really way too swamped to hold 2 offices, one being a dual office already. That person was my sister. I expressed my feelings to our officers on the nomination, withheld from the voting, and let it go at that. Although not as organized as I was, she still did an okay job with things, and the president and myself just picked up the slack to make sure deposits were made on time etc. My sister basically was just a bookkeeper needing to log all deposits/checks and balance it monthly with the statement, and report to us at our monthly meetings. We normally do not have meetings in the summer with so much else going on, and if any decisions need to be made myself and the president make phone calls to get authorization for expenditures and turn the receipts over to our treasurer, my sister. (Yes, I know, I keep repeating my sister....it is a big part of my dilemma and I feel the need to stress "my sister") A little background on my relationship with this sister might be in order to help everyone understand some things at this point. Her and I seldom see eye to eye....we don't agree on most things, and probably wouldn't even be friends if we weren't related. She is married to a man who is terminally ill with cirrhosis and hepatitis b, and he won't quit drinking to help his health. She is also an alcoholic. Several years back we had a falling out over another issue where she believed something another female said that was VERY derogatory to me, the falling out ended in a physical fight between the 2 of us, and not speaking to each other for 8 months. When we came to be friends again the motto was "blood is thicker than water", she had every right to be upset with me if what was said was true...but she should have come to ME first and dealt with me. There isn't a whole lot of respect for my sister because of her lifestyle, and how it affects my 13 yr old niece...but she has a right to choose to live her life and we agree to disagree, but the one thing that has come about from our rocky past and her actions is the fact that I won't even loan her so much as $20...if her family is hungry I will take her to the grocery store....but I won't give her $$$ because it will just be spent on alcohol. There is alot of that "unconditional" love because she is my sister....I can't stop loving her because I don't like her too much.
Last Friday morning I got a phone call from our auxiliary president that she had opened the bank statement when it came in the mail, which she always has done periodically, and is fully authorized to do so, and that there were some issues on the statement that she wanted me to look into. When I got to the club and was shown the statement it had 5 checks totally $1498 that had been written to my sister, in one months time, that we had not authorized nor signed. (our account requires 2 signatures on each check) The signatures were my name, and the presidents name...but they were not our signatures, they were forged. My sister was asked to bring the checkbook and ledger to the club immediately for an audit. I went to the bank to freeze the account and ask for a statement showing activity from the September statement up until that day...what it showed was a balance of $7.61. I then asked for a statement for July and August...on July 6th we had a balance of $2816. The first thing my sister accused me of was not sticking by family and helping her to keep the fact that she "borrowed" (her words) from our business account because she was out of work the month of August and had to do it to pay her bills. She has no concept of the fact that even if I wanted to keep it a secret I couldn't...I wasn't the one who discovered the issue. She said some really not nice things about me not helping family. She did finally bring the books to our president, who started trying to audit them this evening in the hopes of keeping me as far away from the situation as possible. She is not having much luck balancing it, although she has found 3 more checks totalling $652 written to my sister, and with our signatures forged. The club would like to keep all of this underwraps and give her a chance to pay back the $$$, but even if she can come up with such a large sum in the next 10 days (she claims she is waiting for a loan approval to pay us back) we cannot not report this to the other officers or we are just as guilty. Once it is reported, I am sure the information is liable to leak out and the rumors will fly. Already people are questioning the fact that I was at the club 3 times on Friday....behind closed doors with the president...and seen at the bank twice by another auxiliary member. It then came to light that she has written $700 in bad checks to the canteen at the club and has not yet tried to make good on what she calls a mistake. The most logical course of action is to file a report against her for the forgery..at that point the bank takes over, investigates the fraud and reimburses us our $$$ since they cashed checks that were illegally signed. But, that cannot be done without a police report. The president does not have a problem...even though she is a long time friend of my sister, following the legal course of action, our 2nd vice is a dear sweet lady who although won't have a problem with the legalities is not capable of auditing the checkbook to have all our Ps & Qs covered so to speak and to obtain the proof of just how much my sister stole. Our secretary just had major back surgery and is still bedridden. That leaves myself and the president. Technically, 2 people (or more) should participate in the audit, ensuring that no discrepancies are "overlooked" for friendship reasons, so the responsibility is back in my lap. I am really caught between a rock and a hard place here....already my mom has jumped my case wanting to know what was going on with my sister because of her erratic behavior lately and is pissed at me that I won't tell her what I do know. My father is terminally ill and not doing so well, and this is something that would break his heart to have to take to his grave. He is a very proud man who expects his children to behave in a manner that would not shame him or our family name. As much as I wish I didn't have to be a part of any of this, I feel obligated to at least do what I can to balance the books and document my findings in case the auxiliary does decide to pursue legal action. I feel that I have to do what is right, regardless of my personal feelings, if it was anyone else I would have already filed a police report. But, I am torn by the fact that my actions will destroy my sister and her family (which of course is my family), and she may even end up doing jail time. Depending on how the charges play out, she could very well lose her career...busdrivers don't get much work when they have had felony charges on them. The club wants to do everything they can to minimalize the damage to me, but the fact remains that MY signature was also forged...and if asked to testify to that fact, I cannot lie about it. If I refuse to testify to that not being my signature than it could be construed as I authorized my sisters personal loans from our business account...and I am just as guilty of theft.
Give me some feedback as to how you think I should proceed....if I don't do the audit, there is only one other person who can right now, and she is already lost. If I do do the audit, I am the bad man who sent her sister up the river. I have family obligations to stand by my family and help them in anyway I can...and have always done so, but I also have moral and ethical obligations to protect a non profit organization that I am the vice president of. Either way, I hope to keep my father from finding any of this out...he doesn't deserve to die knowing his daughter is a thief.