Friday 8th January, 2016

A former finance manager for the Salvation Army USA,  pleaded guilty to stealing more than a quarter-million dollars from the charity over a two-year period. He is scheduled for sentencing on 31st March.

By the time officials caught on to his scheme, Gary Hilliard had stolen more than $272,000 from the charity, said John Horn, US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. The Salvation Army hired Hilliard in 2008, to supervise accounts and approve vendor invoices and countersign cheques.

He created and submitted fake invoices to the Salvation Army’s accounts-payable department, passing them off as legitimate bills from the Charity’s vendors and business partners. Hilliard, head of the department, approved the invoices, or made sure they were OK’d, evidence showed.

He counter-signed the cheques in his role as finance manager, then obtained or forged any other required signatures. Initially, Hilliard deposited the cheques into his personal accounts, but in June 2011, he created bank accounts in some vendors’ names, and he deposited more fraudulent cheques into those, testimony revealed.

His scheme fell apart two years after it began when Hilliard’s bank noted a discrepancy on a name on a Salvation Army cheque and contacted the charity.