A former chief executive officer of an Evanston-based charity will head to court next month after being charged with pocketing about $330,000 from his former employer.
Carl Dixon, a 55-year-old former Kenilworth resident, was arrested Sept. 16 by Evanston police when he arrived at a Skokie courthouse on unrelated charges of drunk driving.
He faces felony charges of theft and theft by deception.
Dixon served as the head of the Kidney Cancer Association, 1234 Sherman Ave., for six years. He is charged with intercepting checks made out to the organization before they were processed.
“He had the authority as our attorney and our organization’s president to open accounts on behalf of the organization,” said Bill Bro, the current CEO of the Kidney Cancer Association. “He opened one in our name that we never knew about.”
During Dixon’s tenure as CEO, a few members of the charity’s board were suspicious of his excessive travel and expense reports, Bro said. But there were no accusations of misconduct until after Dixon resigned last October, right before an internal audit.
“Clearly it was suspicious because we scheduled an audit and he promptly resigned,” Bro said.
The audit did not uncover any incriminating information about Dixon. But suspicions surfaced again when a donor asked for a record of a donation for tax-exemption purposes, Bro said. When employees could not find the record, they began to uncover more financial inconsistencies and contacted the police.
Evanston Police Department became involved in January and investigated the case for eight months, leading up to Dixon’s arrest last week, said Cmdr. Michael Perry of EPD.
The Kidney Cancer Association plans to cooperate with authorities for possible recovery of stolen assets.
The organization raises money to heighten awareness about the disease, funds research and provides support to kidney cancer patients. It has approximately 16,000 members nationwide.
“We were victimized,” said Celeste Kelley, the charity’s vice president of development. “Kidney cancer patients were victimized.”
The non-profit organization hopes to avoid donation or membership backlash, Kelley said. It also has implemented new accounting safeguards to prevent internal theft.
“He completely fooled everyone here,” Kelley said. “We were dismayed, shocked and feeling very betrayed.”
Dixon is an attorney and graduated magna cum laude from Illinois Wesleyan University. Last fall the university awarded him the Alumni Association Loyalty Award for his financial contributions.
He had recently moved to Nashville, Tenn.
A judge set bail at $15,000, which Dixon did not post. He is scheduled to appear Oct. 17 at Circuit Court in Skokie.
