Matt Augee of the RecFX Foundation has won acceptance from military and devout communities by presenting himself as a warrior and his nonprofit as a Christian cause, according to a survey by the Arizona Republic.
He used humor, generosity and encouraged other people’s dreams to attract other suffering people to his projects, other people who knew him said. Homeless mother, the research found.
Augee denies wrongdoing.
Former supporters, in addition to Augee’s own parents, attempted to arrest him by attempting to dissolve the organization and informing the local and federal government of their concerns.
Arizona’s attorney general has closed at least two investigations without charge, while other agencies have not responded to the allegations. Augee continues to function as his foundation, though the IRS website says it revoked its nonprofit prestige in 2019.
Judith Hatch, 79, a U. S. Air Force veteranShe was one of Augee’s biggest cheerleaders before she died of cancer in December. They met in 2015 at a veterans resource fair where he showed up to help Hatch fix up his house and then invited her to run the base board.
Hatch hunting before running with someone who claimed to have spent years in the military and law enforcement, like her.
“I felt like we had a connection there,” Hatch recalls. “As veterans, we stand together, don’t we?”
But Hatch, one of Augee’s most tenacious warring parties in 2021, after concluding that he had scammed her out of at least $55,000, used her identity to apply for unauthorized loans and urged her to make real real estate deals, she told The Republic.
He learned that Augee’s stories in the service of the country were also real.
“There’s not a gram actually coming out of this man’s mouth,” said Hatch, who was revered as a pioneer in the military through the Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame.
Hatch lived in a modest space on the west side of Phoenix with an American flag on the front. Among the cancer treatments, she passed on to The Republic reams of documents she and others had compiled to divulge to Augee, who felt officials weren’t taking seriously. .
“He’s their base for scamming the public,” Hatch said. “He hurts many other people with his sweet speech and his lies. “
Augee, 56, denied the allegations, had helped thousands of military families and done nothing inappropriate.
Critics are misinformed or make things up, he said.
“We’ve had other people who, in a way, have their heads turned back and absolutely information,” Augee said in a March 28 phone call. “There’s a lot of fraudulent nonprofit work, but it’s not us. It’s the opposite of what we do. “
Augee canceled interviews with The Republic within two months.
Dennis Wilenchik, an attorney representing the RecFX Foundation, denied embezzling cash.
“Many people, over the years, have tried to destroy the clever paintings that the Foundation makes,” he wrote in a reaction to the newspaper. “If the Foundation focused on all the strange noise, it wouldn’t be to help the many families. who use their services. “
The lawsuits against Augee span roughly two decades, either at a company he founded in Oregon in 1996, called Rec FX Inc. , and later at the nonprofit RecFX foundation, which he established in Arizona in 2005.
The Republic spoke to nearly 3 dozen family members, veterans, volunteers, workers, and board members for this article. Of these, 11 other people counselled through Augee for interviews said they had gotten help or witnessed charities.
The Republic also went through a slew of pages of documents, adding army corps records, bank records, court records, business licenses, loan applications, emails, text messages, letters, receipts, meeting minutes, and court cases sent to federal and local agencies. .
In addition to telling Augee of the charity in his favour, former followers say he distorted his private history.
Falsely claiming that military service is offensive to many who have earned their stripes. Veterans even instantiate Stolen Value online.
“It makes me very angry,” said retired National Guard Maj. Sven Olson, 59, a former friend and board member. Augee “never paid the price. He never crawled through the mud. It was never deployed. He never put on a uniform. “
A less serious story shows Augee’s habit of exaggeration, said others who knew him.
Augee claims he invented pool floats, in interviews with former supporters and copies of text messages. However, the media says that two Canadian men are the inventors.
“Every time I see a pool noodle, it infuriates me,” said former worker Tracy Swanson, the mother of a fallen soldier who said he became homeless in 2021 because the basis was not to pay the salary he earned. “I went through hell because of it. “
The foundation’s project has evolved since its inception, the documents show. For the past decade, its main source of income has been collecting furniture, appliances, cabinets and countertops from luxury homes that are being renovated in places like Scottsdale, Paradise Valley. , and Cave Creek. Donors are promised tax deductions and loose demolitions, according to documents and supporters.
The RecFX Foundation then sells the pieces in cash, which generated about $1 million in 2018, according to an allocation plan distributed to the base board. In return, the organization donates assets to military families and calls in volunteers and contractors to help fix and house the house.
Among the monetary allegations opposing Augee, according to interviews and court cases filed with local and federal authorities:
The Rec FX Foundation also mistakenly tells donors they can take advantage of federal tax deductions, The Republic found. The IRS revoked the prestige of 501(c)3 nonprofit charity in 2019 because it did not produce monetary information.
In addition, the Augee base collected more than $25,000 in unpaid garage fees and fines for code violations, according to county and court records.
Nonprofits facing court cases can go unnoticed because of Arizona’s weak regulations and underfunded enforcement agencies, especially if the organizations are small, said Laurie Styron, executive director of nonprofit watchdog CharityWatch.
But employing charitable donations for non-public benefit is a mistake, he said.
A base “is not a non-public piggy bank to manage, no matter how hard they work,” Styron said.
Styron lamented that state agencies like the Attorney General’s Office and the Arizona Corporation Commission did more to investigate and hold the RecFX Foundation accountable if the allegations were upheld.
“For the state, shrugging is obnoxious,” he said. It’s a real disgrace. “
Augee’s parents, Rod and Beth Augee, were his first whistleblowers. But those were the last ones.
They became concerned about the RecFX Foundation about a decade ago, after Rod Augee retired from Christian ministry and moved to Arizona. He had helped run megachurches near their homes in Oregon, led campus ministries, and was active in the local Republican Party. and county government.
When the couple discovered what they believed to be suspicious monetary activity within the foundation, they attempted to subdue their son, they told The Republic. When that failed, the returned missionaries reported Augee to the police, filed warrants of cover against him. and warned supporters of their concerns.
Seeing Augee go unchecked, they contacted The Republic last year, hoping to warn the public to paint with him or the RecFX Foundation.
“He wants help,” said Rod Augee, 83. And other people want protection. “
Military families have sounded the alarm.
Jeff Raebel, the former combat medic in Iraq, lived in an air-conditioned trailer with his wife for two years and had to spend 4 times more than they had planned to save a poorly managed Augee home renovation, he said. The tension exacerbated his physical state and intellectual health.
The couple notified the base board of their experience.
“I don’t need (Augee) to do that to anyone else,” Jeff Raebel said. “But no one controlled that he was arrested. “
Hatch, an Air Force veteran and longtime leader of Arizona’s military community, spent his final months publicizing Augee.
The RecFX board member died on Christmas even before delivering a pile of documents and hours of interviews to investigators from the Attorney General’s Office and the Republic.
She said Augee tricked her out of an estimated $55,000 to $85,000, urged her to promote her home to charity and used her private data to apply for loan permission.
Foundation forums conducted through Rod Augee and then Hatch filed papers in 2018 and 2021 seeking to take over the organization, only to see the Corporation Commission re-oversee Augee, according to the documents.
Complaints filed with the Attorney General’s Office, the Enterprise Commission, the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Phoenix Police Department have resulted in charges.
The attorney general twice refused to press charges against Augee after investigating, according to documents received through The Republic. A spokesman declined to comment.
The Corporation Commission “does not engage in disputes” involving nonprofits, a spokesperson told The Republic.
The FBI, FTC and IRS declined to comment. Phoenix police responded in time.
Augee said the base has struggled, but told The Republic that the pandemic is partly to blame.
“COVID has wreaked havoc on many organizations,” he said in a brief phone interview.
Augee also told board members and The Republic that her father and Hatch suffered from dementia.
Family members deny that none has lost their faculties.
“My dad doesn’t have dementia and he’s not confused,” Augee’s sister, Ruth Cheney, 58, told The Republic. In reporting her son to authorities, she said Rod Augee “spent a lot of time gathering (information). It is not a reckless or instinctive reaction, and it is not easy for him to do so. It’s a very comprehensive idea. “
Hatch’s son, Geoff Hatch, said his mother was strong until she died. He thinks Augee puts “blame everywhere, but where it belongs. “
“My mother was willing to help him at first, and he turned around and bit her,” Geoff Hatch said. “He’s done that to a lot of people. “
Wilenchik said Augee was the victim of “nothing more than a smear campaign” and an “attempt to murder the Foundation’s reputation” through his current wife.
“(T]he Foundation is focused on its efforts for the lives of the families it serves,” Wilenchik wrote.
Augee told The Republic he hasn’t earned a salary as CEO in years.
“He claims that whoever took credit for anything, yes, it didn’t happen. . . I paint for free,” Augee told The Republic. Nothing wrong has been done, and no one has escaped with anything. “
Money reports the IRS asks nonprofits to file each year show Augee didn’t get a salary in 2012, 2013 or 2014. The RecFX Foundation has not filed any other reports, according to the IRS and Candid’s website, which tracks the charity’s transparency. .
However, in 2020, Augee told the federal government he earned an annual salary.
In the foundation’s application for the paycheck coverage program, Augee said he earned a salary that year of $99,600, $163,850 in “parallel consulting and design projects” and $7,235 in patent royalties. foreign public databases). Augee added that he had more than a million dollars in an “offshore IRA. “
RecFX Foundation has helped army families, La República showed several interviews.
For example, volunteers rebuilt a space for a Vietnam veteran after it caught fire.
A Gold Star father won discounted fabrics for his home renovation. The free furniture, clothing, and groceries were a lifeline for a former Marine Corps veteran raising only 4 children and a former Army police officer who lost his job during the pandemic.
Three armies told La République that they had obtained assistance for relocation.
They discovered Augee, the Arizona Department of Veterans Services, church networks and even a local Home Depot.
Some gave back through volunteering with the charity.
“He (Augee) and the organization haven’t been smart to me at all,” said Steve Trotter, 63, a Navy veteran who won from the RecFX Foundation, worked there and volunteered. idea, I would be fooled somehow. . . He’s the kind of user who would give her the blouse on her back. “
Augee also counsels veterans about suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, child abuse, custody and marital issues, she said. Augee is legal to counsel through the Arizona Behavioral Health Examination Board, records show.
“He’s become a big guy for us,” Briar Mobley, a 30-year-old disabled skydiver, said of Augee’s family counseling circle. “We wouldn’t be as strong as we are without that kind of help. “
Augee looks like the beach-loving young pastor he once was, according to social media posts.
Sunglasses in a cap. cargo shorts High and bearded with a smile.
He went on project trips abroad as a teenager and cared for Southern California youth as a young adult, friends and family circle said.
However, at the age of 30, Augee supports a wife and 3 children and faces high medical bills. Their son was diagnosed with severe cystic fibrosis as an infant, Augee’s parents said. (The son is now a successful adult, according to a circle of family members. )
Augee founded a company called Rec FX Inc. in Oregon in 1996 to sell toys to teams and Christian youth camps.
One of the company’s first employees, Sheri Elmont, recalled that Augee did not accept a salary and withdrew sporadic payments in coins, saying she needed coins for her children’s rent, expenses and braces.
Augee stated in its application for the 2020 paycheck policy program that it has been operating “on a primarily monetary basis for the past 28 years. ” She wrote that she had to qualify for the medical policy for her child. Families with young people with disabilities must earn below certain thresholds to get government benefits.
Rec FX Inc. continued to operate from 1996 to 2008, even as the company racked up more than $27,000 in unpaid taxes and lost its registration for failing to file annual returns, records show. Augee blamed an accountant.
Elmont’s paintings and friendship with Augee ended when she demanded payment of about $20,000 in back wages and loans she had made to the company, she said, and Augee charged her with theft. It was a blow.
“He can be so friendly and have such wonderful concepts and deliver them in such an exciting way that he just absorbed,” Elmont said. But “the moment you start holding him accountable for his moves and decisions, he becomes opposite to you. “”
Augee became part of the nonprofit RecFX Foundation in 2005 after moving with his family circle to Arizona.
Through the foundation, he organized surf camps in California for teenagers, the footage shows. But food was lacking, staff members were not being paid and Augee borrowed from families, participants told The Republic.
“It seemed to be what he did, paying for today’s expenses with tomorrow’s money,” said Keith Calloway, a former friend of the circle of relatives and camp volunteer.
In 2010, Augee dreamed of building a recreational facility to teach teens and adults how to put together army and police group exercises, according to documents and interviews.
Victor Escoto, a retired Phoenix police detective who knew Augee from the church, worked on the plan. But Augee crossed paths with partners, Ecoto said, and the task failed.
“It felt like chaos,” Scotus said. He was the victim. “
Another of Augee’s projects related to partnering with Olson, the Army National Guard major, to organize events for children that fit the deployments of Army parents.
“He’s a true genius of creativity and working with young people,” Olson said. “We have replaced the lives of many children together. “
But Olson ended their friendship after hearing Augee tell a volunteer he was an Army veteran.
“I immediately took him apart and said, ‘Why would you say you’re a veteran?We’re an organization that has veterans like me on the board, but you’re not a particular veteran,'” Olson said.
Augee said he did basic education at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and left because of asthma, Olson said. But Augee couldn’t describe what the base where Olson had once trained should look like.
“He just refused to admit he was lying,” Olson said.
Olson later discovered that Augee claimed to have been a combat engineer who “built things and exploited them. “That was Olson’s task and his joke. Olson wondered if Augee would raise his military biography.
More than 20 interviewees said Augee told them he had served in the military, police or both.
An article quoting Augee in 2016 described him as a former soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder.
A 2017 handwritten application to the Southwest Veterans Chamber of Commerce by Augee said he spent two years in the military as “12 Bravo,” slang for combat engineer, and six years as a “Los Angeles County Congressman,” according to a copy from the House. Augee renovated his club the following year, the chamber said.
Augee told a Maricopa County justice of the peace that he was “a former California congressman,” according to video from the 2018 court hearing in the cover order case received through the state.
“I’m a former Lion,” Augee emailed a Maricopa County courthouse in 2021, an acronym for law enforcement officer.
The military and law enforcement say Augee never served.
An official letter from the U. S. National Personnel Records CenterThe U. S. government’s federal repository of all military service records says the company searched for Augee’s call and social security number and “no matching records were found. “Verification was requested through Augee’s wife at the time before the couple filed for divorce in 2018. A copy provided to La République.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office told The Republic that the branch has no record of Augee’s employment. Even an undercover agent would appear in their employment records, the official said.
Neither Augee nor Wilenchik provided proof of Augee’s service, despite repeated requests.
Augee’s parents say they never knew Augee served in the military or law enforcement until they heard him tell volunteers about it around the same time as Olson.
Olson’s anger at the stage has faded.
Augee “sees the deep sacrifice those other people have made, the valid pain, the physical, intellectual and emotional wounds of PTSD, and internalizes it, and needs it for itself,” Olson said.
Rod Augee was unaware of considerations about his son’s veracity or the use of donations when he joined the Board of Directors of the RecFX Foundation in 2014. He said he only hoped to help Augee at a difficult time.
The charity had little profit and board members had resigned, records show. Augee remarried after divorcing his first wife.
“Matt desperately needed wisdom and foundation,” Rod Augee told The Republic.
Rod Augee and his wife, Beth Augee, moved to Phoenix and began recruiting board members and participating in garage sales, they said. Income reached $131,000 in 2015, according to IRS records, and topped $700,000 in 2016 and 2017, according to a basic allowance. brochure.
However, Rod Augee’s considerations grew as he reviewed bank statements.
Some purchases gave the impression of not being related to the charity, Augee said. Bank statements show Jeep payments, dental care, a hot air balloon flight, a trip to Las Vegas and more.
In addition, Augee withdrew cash month-to-month from the RecFX Foundation account, without offering receipts or justification, according to Rod Augee and bank statements.
Unauthorized purchases, refunds and withdrawals totaled nearly $40,000 between 2015 and 2017, Augee estimated.
Rod Augee also feared that his son would benefit from selling donated items. At Rod Augee’s request, a volunteer wrote down his mementos of a garage sale in which Augee asked the volunteer to deposit the product into Augee’s private account and the volunteer refused, according to a copy of the Augee provided to The Republic.
Former base workers told the newspaper that Augee took donated furniture and electronics for his own home.
In a statement, Wilenchik, the attorney, said that “each of the Foundation’s monetary documents was completed through a committee process, which included qualified public accountants. (Augee) had no independence over the Foundation’s budget or the use of funds. “
Grief-stricken, Rod Augee organized a board vote in 2017 to eliminate Augee’s charity bank accounts and put him on leave.
The board would “focus on creditworthiness,” the assembly minutes said.
But Augee wasn’t satisfied with the sabbatical. He called the move a “hostile takeover of the foundation” in a letter to supporters and fired the board.
Soon after, Rod Augee and Beth Augee heard their son knocking on their door screaming, Rod Augee told a judge.
The court granted opposing coverage orders to Augee in 2017 and 2018 for his parents, wife, son-in-law and pastor and ordered his guns taken away.
A search exposed his father’s gun hidden in Augee’s bathtub, Rod Augee testified, as well as two pistols belonging to Augee hidden in light accessories, attack rifles and “hundreds” of cartridges.
Augee’s wife filed for divorce alleging domestic violence.
“Their preference for getting their guns back is what I admire most,” Patricia Augee wrote in an application to renew the cover order in 2018.
Augee downplayed the fees at a hearing.
He said his wife assaulted him and he underwent many back operations.
“I feel like everything points unfairly at me,” Augee said in a video recording received through The Republic. “I’m not a threat to anyone.
When the cover orders expired in 2020, Augee had his guns returned.
A fight ensued for the RecFX Foundation.
Rod Augee asked the Corporation Commission to shut down the charity and told supporters it had closed, according to the documents. He sent a letter to the Attorney General’s Office.
The commission allowed Augee to reopen the foundation. The attorney general asked for more documents, records show, and then closed the case.
“(I) we have decided that this workplace will not open a thief investigation,” the investigator wrote.
Rod and Beth Augee sent one last letter to their son and returned to Oregon in 2018.
“Our prayers and love for you have NEVER ceased,” they wrote. “PLEASE get the one you want to be the vessel that God can use again. “
Augee temporarily attracted new board members, donors and veterans in need, according to interviews. Several said they wanted not to meet him again in the future.
Jeff Raebel is a veteran with regrets.
The 52-year-old former Army combat medic with PTSD met Augee in 2019 while making plans to renovate the house with his wife, Megan Raebel.
They had stored about $40,000 and needed a trailer to live in construction. Augee had a trailer for sale. (On Craigslist and OfferUp, Augee publishes articles under the name BaseOne Warehouse. It opened a new LLC, BaseOne Services, in March. )
When Augee learned Jeff Raebel was a veteran, he convinced the couple that the RecFX Foundation could complete a much bigger renovation than their initial plans in a matter of months, the couple said.
If they give them the $40,000, Augee would take care of the rest, he promised.
Jeff Raebel and his wife were suspicious. They hesitated to approve a major proposed expansion through a foreigner who would pass by to raze the outer walls and tear off the roof.
“My time in the military made people’s trust very difficult,” Raebel said.
But the couple investigated the base and didn’t discover any problems.
In addition, Augee claimed to be a former soldier. He suggested to Jeff Raebel that he let the chain give him back after all his years of sacrifice.
“He used that Army camaraderie to let his guard down,” Jeff Raebel said. “I trusted who burned us badly. “
Augee began exhibiting the couple to donors, Megan Raebel said.
He made a brochure, featured them on his website, and took them to wealthy owners and veteran-like structure managers that the base helped. effective. And structure officials connected Augee to more homes being renovated.
The Raebels spent weekends demolishing luxury homes, Raebel said, knowing that their volunteer paintings would pay for their own renovation and that of other veterans. They won donated windows, doors, kitchen island and garage door, he said.
“He used our story and our call to solicit all those donations, and they tricked us into the procedure and we helped him fuck other people,” Megan Raebel said. “In retrospect, we simply legitimized their scam. “
The Raebels’ assignment began to derail.
Staff didn’t show up or make paintings so sloppy that the couple had to tear things down and do it themselves, they said. Augee kept promising that the foundation’s budget would come, but the cash never came, Megan Raebel said.
At the same time, Augee raised giant sums of cash at RecFX Foundation garage sales and kept no records of the sales, Raebel said. She saw lots of expenses in her home and said Augee pointed out outdoor furniture and appliances that she said she had taken from donors.
Megan Raebel emailed Hatch, who tried to help but ultimately couldn’t save the project.
When the couple learned they had exhausted their savings and that Augee wasn’t going to complete the project, the renovation was “at a point of no return,” the Raebels said. The ceiling and walls were still missing.
He charged them two years and more than $100,000 more than their budget to finish the house, as well as many hours of painting with contractors who took pity on them, they said.
Jeff Raebel’s fitness has deteriorated, he said.
He feels bad about Augee exploiting the acceptance of veterans as real by pretending to have worn a uniform, he said.
“He stole too much time and power from us,” Raebel said. I would like to see him go to jail. “
Another circle of family members blamed Augee for a renewal crisis in 2019, according to a Google review verified through The Republic.
Family members said Augee was paid money for kitchen cabinets and windows, as well as a $1,500 allocation control fee.
But Augee ordered the long materials, didn’t reimburse the family, didn’t pay contractors, kept more than $4,000 he wasn’t entitled to and disappeared, they said.
A renovation, according to Augee, would cost about $28,000 in total and eventually charge them about $80,000, said the wife, who was pregnant with their sixth child at the time.
“We treated him with kindness thinking he was a veteran and ran a great charity,” the family’s Google magazine said. “Look for a charity that doesn’t use other people for non-public gain. “
Hatch, the Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame winner who spent nearly three decades in the military, another veteran who regretted trusting Augee.
As a decision-maker who was in the military as a young woman, she committed her final months of life in 2021 to one mission: to publish the allegations against Augee.
Hatch joined the military at the age of 18 in 1960, when only 2 percent of the military allowed to be a woman and was fired because she became pregnant, she said. Hatch went on to paint for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois, where he boasted of arresting criminals and once reunited Martin Luther King Jr.
Eager to return to the military, Hatch joined the Air National Guard in 1972, as the first single mother accepted into the ranks, she said.
She retired from the reserves in 2000 and has continued to volunteer for many veterans organizations, Carl T Veterans Administration Medical Center. Hayden, the American Legion and the Pearl Harbor Day Remembrance Committee.
Hatch flags at the funeral of Vietnam War hero Senator John McCain. His sons buried his ashes in Arlington National Cemetery.
Hatch learned firsthand about the mission of the RecFX Foundation. Augee had helped her get insurance money to repair typhoon damage to her home and provided volunteers to make other improvements. He was pleased to fill the board void left by Augee’s father in 2018.
But Hatch began to realize the discrepancies.
For one, so many donations were pouring into the base that Augee rented 17 garage boxes and claimed in an allocation prospectus that the organization raised $923,000 in 2018, according to the documents.
On the other hand, the nonprofit gave the impression of being in a currency crisis, Hatch said, and Augee borrowed from him and other board members.
“We were in the red. Every time I turned around, he had spent all the money,” Hatch told The Republic.
With receipts and a spreadsheet compiled through Hatch, he lent between $60,000 and $90,000 from 2019 to 2021 and earned about $6,500 in rebates. The cash went toward Augee’s rent, legal fees, insurance and other expenses, according to Hatch and some receipts.
Other RecFX board members also wrote checks to cover the foundation’s expenses, but not as much as Hatch, after Augee panicked about the need to cover new expenses, three former board members told The Republic.
In 2020, Augee asked Hatch to fund a project.
He wanted to build an equestrian treatment center for veterans called Rockin’ RX Ranch.
Hatch said Augee came forward to get a nearly million-dollar loan to buy assets in North Phoenix. Documents and receipts show Hatch began applying for a Veterans Affairs loan and paid thousands of dollars in deposits to ranch owners.
But the estate transaction failed.
Over the next few months, Hatch said he won phone calls and letters from lenders requesting financing applications.
“I was not aware of this request. I did not authorize it,” Hatch wrote on one of the investment forms.
Hatch accused Augee of his identity for applying for loans without permission, the emails show, which Augee denied.
Hatch filed a police report at Phoenix. La branch responded to Republic’s request for an update on the case.
Hatch’s patience with Augee expired after the organization gained a moment of investment in the paycheck hedging program. The RecFX Foundation earned $84,000 in government investment in 2020 and $150,000 in 2021, according to public records.
Hatch believed the coins had been misused from the moment the loan was used, he said. He questioned the justification for spending about $18,000 on fast food, Netflix, Apple, Home Depot, Costco, AutoZone, a business coach and the legal fees he discovered at the bank. Records. He was horrified by the thousands of dollars in coin withdrawals he discovered. And he noted that check receipts for workers’ wages did not total $90,000, as the government demanded for loan cancellation.
The app also gave the impression of being disabled. He claimed 15 workers, but when the RecFX Foundation used PPP money for payroll, only 10 workers earned checks, according to bank receipts. An officer said Augee owned the ranch, though he wasn’t.
When Hatch was an administrator in the military, she had earned a reputation as a follower of protocol. He bragged about telling high-ranking officers that they couldn’t break the rules. He now believed Augee was breaking the law.
As Augee’s father had done a few years earlier, Hatch called an emergency board meeting. Members voted in favor of Augee from his position as executive director for “fraudulent activity” and reported him to law enforcement, according to March 2021 minutes.
Augee, in turn, told Hatch that she had been fired. Other board members resigned.
The Foundation’s attorney, Wilenchik, told The Republic that Hatch was in their claims.
“Not a penny of the Foundation’s payroll coverage program (“PPP”) has been lost or misapplied,” he wrote.
Among cancer treatments, Hatch reported his allegations to the attorney general, the Companies Commission, the FBI and agencies, he said.
“I am desperate,” she wrote to a member of the Corporate Commission. “I’m at war for my own life. . . I’d like to see some kind of closure in this case while I can. “
But the attorney general’s office sent a letter last summer saying the case was ending.
Hatch turned to the Republic for help, hoping that public attention could spur more action.
“I don’t understand why anyone cares that this guy has been scamming other people for so many years,” he said.
Any about this story? Send an email to newstips@arizonarepublic. com.
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