I’m pretty sure that Kevin Held is the worst person in the world. You’ll have to read the article to get the full flavor, but this guy set up a charity in 2003 to raise funds to make an enormous multiple football-field size quilt made up of king size sheets. It was supposed to be a 9/11 memorial. He succeeded in raising over $700,000 but he did not succeed in creating the quilt. Instead, he just paid himself and his brothers.
The $713,000 that Held raised from students, school fundraising campaigns, T-shirt sales and other donations is gone. More than $270,000 of that went to Held and family members, records show.
In a July interview, Held said he hoped to finish the quilt in a few months. But he changed his mind a few weeks after the AP began asking questions, abruptly shutting the project because of “tough economic times.”
Held has done an impressive job raising money, persuading students to hold “penny drives” and police officers to buy T-shirts promoting the quilt for $20 or more. But he’s spent a lot in doing so.
Since 2004, Held paid himself $175,000 in salary, health insurance, other benefits and a weekly car allowance he received for most of that time. He’s owed another $63,820 in deferred salary, according to the charity’s most recent tax filing. Held argues that he’s actually owed closer to $420,000, because he was supposed to receive $60,000 annually since 2003, and has received far less.
He told the AP in July that more than $50,000 paid in 2005 to satisfy a loan never reported by the charity went to his mother to repay “an accumulation of a bunch of small loans.” But when pressed last week – after the AP pointed out that his mother died that year – Held said he paid himself more than $45,000 to repay the loan. He said he couldn’t explain the other $5,000 without researching it.
He said he paid another $12,000 to his brothers, Dave and John, as consulting fees.
Held also charged the charity more than $37,000 for office rent, utilities and other related expenses, according to the group’s tax forms. But the addresses reported by the charity for most years were Held’s home and private mail boxes at PostNet and UPS stores in Arizona and south Texas.
Held said he received much of the office payments to cover the cost of working out of his home.
Held spent more than $170,000 on travel since 2004 to promote the quilt. He rarely traveled without his two Alaskan Malamute dogs, one at 120 pounds and the other 200 pounds. He also listed $36,691 in credit card and bank charges since 2005 and $10,460 for an expense listed as “petty” in 2009.
“I loved going out and traveling,” he said. “I loved going to the police departments.”
I’d say that he should be making at least one more visit to a police station. Here’s the best part.
Still, he’s come a long way since serving a few days in a Tampa jail in 1993 for misdemeanor theft and battery. With his wife, he’s moving into a $660,000, five-bedroom house overlooking a lake in Chandler, Ariz…
…He insists he has accounted for every dime spent by the charity, even if he can’t justify all the expenses.
“It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person,” Held said. “It just means I made a mistake.”
So far, he’s gotten away with it. The article details several other 9/11 charity scams. It makes you wonder why anyone plays by the rules.
