A former official of the Los Angeles firefighters union and chairman of the organization’s nonprofit foundation has been taken into custody and charged with allegedly moving about $83,000 from the foundation to his personal account, authorities announced Wednesday.
According to a criminal complaint, Adam Walker, former secretary of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, has been charged with one felony count of grand theft by an employee or agent and forgery involving articles worth more than $950.
Last June, a joint task force from the California Department of Justice and the L.A. County district attorney’s office discovered that Walker allegedly stole $82,914.24 from the nonprofit foundation between December 2022 and January 2024, according to a statement issued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
“Investigators discovered that Walker constructed a foundation bank account with himself as the sole signer and utilized the account to routinely transfer foundation cash into his personal accounts through intrabank transactions,” according to the news release.He tried to hide the loss from auditors by forging personal credit card refunds and using online sites to create bogus receipts.”
Authorities believe that the stolen cash were utilized for personal needs, such as internet gaming.”We are going to protect public funds,” L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said during a virtual news conference. “We are going to preserve nonprofit funds. We’re going to go after the criminals who are attempting to defraud them.”
The case is being prosecuted jointly by the Department of Justice’s Special Prosecutions Section and the District Attorney’s Office.
It was unclear when Walker would be arraigned.While the investigation is ongoing, any allegations of felony grand larceny are very concerning and must be handled very seriously,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated in a statement issued shortly after the charges were filed. “I’ve spoken with Chief (Jaime) Moore, and I want to thank our state and local law enforcement partners for their work to hold this person — and anyone who commits crime — accountable.”
Leave a Comment