I appreciated the clarity.

Then a former volunteer named Samantha Pike agreed to speak with investigators.

She had managed check-in at the gala and remembered a guest asking for a receipt after donating for the wheelchair ramp project.

“Wendell told me to put the money under ‘general outreach’ instead,” she later said in a sworn statement our attorney was permitted to review.

“I thought it was an accounting category.

But when the donor asked for an update, Wendell told me to say the veteran had moved.”