Minnesota Lawyer Common Keith Ellison has shut down a St. Paul nonprofit that allegedly misspent 1000’s of {dollars} in donations meant to fund faculty provides for kids in want.

Below an enforcement motion filed Wednesday in Ramsey County District Courtroom, Welch Charities should dissolve and its president, Arturo Eguia, is banned from working a charity, accessing charitable belongings or soliciting donations in Minnesota.

Eguia, 46, of St. Paul, began the all-volunteer nonprofit in 2013 to supply faculty provides to low-income youngsters. It raised cash by means of Indian Bike Week, an annual motorbike journey and pageant.

Welch Charities should flip over its belongings to a different nonprofit earlier than dissolving. In an interview Thursday, Eguia stated he’s giving the cash to a Native American church in South Dakota.

Eguia denied misspending the charity’s funds and stated he was unable to entry documentation from years in the past to show the bills have been for charitable prices.

“It wasn’t used for any private funds,” he stated.

Eguia stated he was within the technique of dissolving the nonprofit on his personal earlier than the state took motion.

His legal professional, Ferdinand Peters, stated the state could not show the allegations as a result of the investigation by Ellison’s workplace was incomplete. As a part of the settlement, Eguia and Welch Charities neither admit nor deny the allegations.

Peters stated Eguia “had performed possibly some sloppy bookkeeping, however he did not do something flawed that was unlawful.”

The Lawyer Common’s Workplace, he stated, needs “to point out an instance to different charities, however typically they get it flawed they usually smear a charity by means of the mud that simply did not have the cash to proceed to combat them to truly go to a trial.”

A spokesperson for the Lawyer Common’s Workplace stated the investigation took 15 months and “the information … are past adequate to ascertain the violations that Mr. Eguia himself acknowledged by signing the settlement.”

The Lawyer Common’s Workplace, which regulates nonprofits within the state, started investigating Welch Charities in 2021 after it didn’t file required paperwork. The state stated the charity wasn’t correctly managed, adopted no insurance policies or procedures and had a board that by no means met or carried out oversight.

In keeping with the state, registration charges from the annual motorbike journey, merchandise gross sales and donations amounted to greater than $142,000 from 2017 to 2021. Of that sum, $12,200 was spent on charitable objects, in accordance with the courtroom doc. An extra practically $37,000 allegedly was used to pay Eguia’s private bills, together with greater than $5,900 in money withdrawals, $1,434 on accommodations, $878 on eating places and bars, and $253 on a pest management firm.

Eguia “took benefit of Minnesotans’ and motorbike riders’ belief and generosity,” Ellison stated in an announcement. “As an alternative of utilizing donations well-intentioned individuals made to Welch Charities to assist low-income faculty youngsters, Eguia as a substitute used the cash meant for kids to counterpoint himself, journey on the charity’s dime and prop up his for-profit enterprise.”

Eguia stated all bills have been incurred as the price of working the charity. For example, he stated, he employed the pest management firm to rid his yard of mosquitoes earlier than an outside fundraiser he hosted. He stated he additionally has photographs and movies of the annual faculty provide distributions.