A shelter director in Georgia was recently convicted on 60 felony counts related to her mismanagement of shelter funds and acceptance of payments to a sponsorship program that guaranteed specific pets would not be killed while, in fact, those pets were killed.
Lowanda “Peanut” Kilby diverted more than $10,000 in donations to Boggs Mountain Humane Shelter into her personal accounts. Donors to the Lucky Dog/Lucky Cat Program were assured that their donations of $100 or more to the program would protect the animals they sponsored from being killed. Many donors received notes saying the animal(s) had been adopted when they were actually killed, sometimes as soon as the payment was made.
Many of those animals were transferred to another shelter to be killed so the numbers would not reflect on Boggs Mountain.
This story came to light when a shelter employer realized she “…couldn’t keep up the charade any longer” and contacted a TV reporter. At the trial, the former Board president admitted that she and other members of the Board had disappointed supporters and lied to the public.
Directors of animal shelters sometimes seem to think they are immune from prosecution for lying to the public and misappropriating funds. This story of fraud and corruption has many parallels to events that have occurred in other communities.
Read the full account here