Lawsuit alleges Cops for Kids charity a ‘sham’

DeWine: Only 2% of $4.4M in donations received by group.

The Ohio Cops CLEVELAND — for Kids charity bilked thousands of donors out of $4.2 million while the charity spent less than 2 percent of its money on actual charitable donations, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Ohio Attorney General.

Attorney General Mike DeWine called the Ashtabula-based program a “sham” operation. Its two organizers, Thomas Duffy and Charles Hitzel, along with Telcom Enterprises of Ohio, the telemarketing company the charity used to solicit donations, are all named as defendants in the lawsuit.

“We believe Cops for Kids is a sham operation that has defrauded Ohioans out of millions of dollars while performing almost no legitimate charitable work,” DeWine said.

The charity, which was founded in 2004, has no affiliation with any law enforcement agencies.

It is also not affiliated with other charities with similar names, including the Cleveland Cops for Kids program, according to Cleveland Police Foundation Director of Development and Programming Angela Bennet.

DeWine said that they will refer their investigation to county prosecutors, but that he doesn’t believe there is a strong enough criminal case to pursue charges. He said his office filed the lawsuit because the charity misled donors and grossly misspent donations.

The lawsuit is filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Hitzel is a former North Kingsville Police Chief. Duffy is a retired manager of a fiberglass company who is involved in several other organizations, including the Northeast Ohio Police Athletic League, according to Cops for Kids’ website.

Messages left for Hitzel and Duffy Wednesday were not immediately returned. Calls to Telcom went unanswered and messages were unable to be left.

The Cops for Kids’ mission is to provide money to help support children who are victims or whose family members are victims of crimes, according to the charity’s website.

The lawsuit says the charity between 2005 and 2015 used more than $3.3 million to pay Telecom and $614,000 was used for Hitzel’s and Duffy’s salaries.

Only $73,840 went to charitable programs. Thousands of Ohioans across the state donated to the charity, DeWine said.

“If someone donated $100 to them, only 80 cents would go to charitable purposes,” DeWine said.

DeWine said his office is seeking a permanent injunction barring the charity and Telecom from soliciting donations in Ohio.

The organization also runs scholarship and educational programs with the names: “Shop with a Cop,” “Buckeye Teddy Bear” and “Bucks for Boots, the lawsuit says. It claimed to provide winter clothes to needy children and shopping sprees for kids, according to the lawsuit..

Telcom is accused of misleading potential donors about Cops for Kids’ affiliation to local police agencies and other false information regarding the charity, according to the lawsuit.

“There are plenty of children’s and law enforcement groups that could use support, so to run this kind of scheme is shameful,” DeWine said.