For Sheila and Guy Fauteux of Hudson, figuring out who scammed them was easy.
The hard part was accepting the identity of the alleged scam artist herself, a close friend of the couple’s late daughter, Tabatha Fauteux, and one of the last people they thought would betray them.
Her name is Krystal Gentley, and she lived in Nashua when police say the $5,400 she raised in a GoFundMe account was used for selfish purposes, not to defray the cost of laying Tabatha, who died in November from a heroin overdose, to rest.
Tabatha was 26.
“My faith is very strong, so I still trust and feel sorry for her,” Sheila Fauteux said recently by phone, referring to Gentley. “Her GoFundMe page said, ‘Let’s help bring Tabatha home to her family, please donate.’ We thought it was a great gesture.”
Trust is everything when it comes to charitable efforts. It’s the foundation upon which everything is built. Tabatha and Gentley grew up together and were once roommates. They trusted each other, and Tabatha’s family trusted Gentley. Why not?
On a broader scale, those who donated to the Cancer Fund of America the past 20-plus years trusted, too. The money, they assumed, would help cancer patients in some way, through research, or equipment, or education, or cab rides to chemotherapy sessions.
It turns out, though, that CFA staff and officials and those of three other cancer-related charities were using most of the money raised for their own needs. They bilked more than $187 million from donors, and only a recent, historic investigation by attorneys general nationwide, combined with the Federal Trade Commission, brought those operations to a screeching halt.
“All 50 states and the FTC never worked as a group before to bring down a charity,” Tom Donovan, director of trusts for the New Hampshire Attorney General, said last week in a conference room at the downtown headquarters. “Some states had cooperated, but never to this extent.”
Closer to home, the Masse family truly needed help and got it. Anyone who contributed to their GoFundMe account two years ago after their Boscawen home was destroyed in a fire trusted that the couple was building a new life, from the ground up.
And they were.
Nothing since has suggested that John and Lisa Masse have done anything wrong. It appears that was an example of the good trust can bring.
What happened in Nashua to the Fauteuxs in November is an example of the bad.
A friend’s alleged betrayal
Tabatha, Sheila said, was clean until her early 20s, after she’d already left home. She loved fishing, either deep sea with her father, Guy, or by herself at local Robinson Pond. She played softball, too.
“A fun spirited girl,” Sheila said. “She would do anything for anyone and she lit up the room. She was a creative girl, spunky and on the go.”
How and why Tabatha turned to drugs and got hooked on heroin a few years ago is anyone’s guess. We know what it’s doing to people in New Hampshire these days, creating statistics that don’t seem possible.
Tabatha became a statistic too, although she knew the road she was heading down was dangerous, and in fact sought help from her parents.
“She told us what was going on,” Sheila said. “She did not want to live that lifestyle.”
So she and her family fought back, the start of highs and lows associated with addiction. Tabatha relapsed after treatment in Arizona, where Sheila and Shannon, one of Tabatha’s two older sisters, had driven to bring her home.
Then, in a Texas rehab facility, everything changed. Tabatha not only got well; she thrived.
“She was excited to get through this part of her life,” Sheila said. “She was excited to get better.”
Tabatha graduated from the program and interned there to build a career, helping people who had gone through the hell she had.
Then events clouded over like a drug high. Sent to California for work training, Tabatha was found dead from a presumed overdose on the hotel bathroom floor, the shower running.
“We haven’t found out yet how this happened,” Sheila said. “The copy of the death certificate says deferred. Toxicology results did not come back and we’re calling and not getting answers.”
From there, Gentley, whose name and number were not listed, offered to set up the fund. She said the money would help transport Tabatha’s body home, plus pay for cremation and a ceremony.
The money grew, as did the bond between a mother and her daughter’s friend. And although Gentley delayed meeting with Sheila, offering excuse after excuse, the process continued, as did the trust.
On Nov. 21, though, the day Tabatha’s friends and family gathered to celebrate a life that ended too soon, Gentley didn’t show up.
The account was empty, the money gone.
“I said, ‘I f—— knew it,’ ” Sheila said. “But I gave her the benefit of the doubt.”
Sheila and Guy turned to the Nashua police, who paid Gentley a visit. Recently she was charged with a felony count of theft by deception. She’ll be arraigned May 17, facing up to 15 years in prison.
“We thought this was a great gesture,” Sheila said. “Then we thought, if she can get away with it once, what makes you think she won’t do it to someone else?”
She can’t, now that the law has gotten involved. Still, GoFundMe does not fall under the same supervisory guidelines and restrictions as a nonprofit charity. In fact, there is no safety net for donors whatsoever. This is trust on steroids.
Donovan, the New Hampshire attorney general’s director of charitable trusts, shook his head and paused when asked about the case.
“Very sad,” he said. “And there are other stories like that that you hear about. That is a personal solicitation, not considered charitable. That is out of our wheelhouse.”
The Cancer Fund of America, however, was right down the middle of the plate, and a collaborative effort smacked it out of the park.
National scam hits home
The state AG’s office actually sued the CFA 25 years ago, forcing the charity to pay back $36,000 to residents it had cheated, plus contribute another $17,000 to the Norris Cotton Cancer Center.
It ended there, though, allowing the CFA, Cancer Supportive Services, the Children’s Cancer Fund of America and Breast Cancer Society Inc., all related charities in close contact, to run amok.
“A lot of freedom is given to charitable organizations and what they say and what they do,” Donovan said. “There is a limit on what the government can do.”
Donovan cited several Supreme Court decisions that set no limits on how much money solicitors could keep for themselves.
However, when filing tax forms with the Internal Revenue Service, money earmarked for certain funding must then reach those destinations.
One day about five years ago, Donovan said, during an informal after-dinner meeting of representatives from attorneys general offices from across the country, discussion centered on the CFA and its charitable affairs.
Donovan wasn’t there, but heard about it.
“They were talking about what they were hearing and seeing in their states about the Cancer Fund of America,” Donovan said. “Something they thought was wrong, so from that, the core group reached out to all 50 states, and each state was asked to contribute a small amount of money.”
From that, details of corruption emerged that darken the heart. In all, $187 million was allegedly bilked from donors. The investigation ended last month with the announcement that CFA and Cancer Support Services Inc., had been dissolved, their president, James Reynolds, banned from profiting from any charity fundraising, ever.
Reynolds and his people “claimed to help cancer patients, but instead spent the overwhelming majority of donations on their operators, families, friends and fundraisers,” a press release said.
Added Donovan, “They were cooking their books to make it look like they were running a real charity and using the money for charitable purposes, but what they collected was mainly going to the management of that charity.”
The end result, though, was somewhat disappointing: No prison time for anyone, and about $2 million returned, total, according to Donovan. It’s not clear how much will come to New Hampshire residents involved.
“The judgment was made that the best way to pursue these people was to close them down and get what money there is,” Donovan said. “It’s all gone, all been spent. We’re getting whatever is left in the company. It’s not enough to give back to the victims, people who donated over the years.”
Support for the Masses
I wrote about John and Lisa Masse two years ago, shortly after a fire destroyed their house in Boscawen and uprooted their lives.
The couple, parents of two boys, A.J., then 14, and 12-year-old Eric, created a GoFundMe account to help with expenses beyond their insurance policy, which eventually reimbursed them $56,000, about half the value of what they said they lost.
The Masses now rent a home in Manchester and say their two children have had a tough time adjusting to a city school after moving through the Merrimack Valley School District.
In an awkward conversation, I asked the Masses about their GoFundMe account, if it had been used in an honest fashion. Did they stash any leftover money away? Did they buy more than they needed?
They said the fund attracted $9,000. They also said they remain about $10,000 in the hole.
“As a matter of fact, we had no extra money and we’re still paying for furniture,” Lisa Masse said by phone. “You need everything. Clothing, food, silverware, things you don’t think about, pots, pans, things for personal hygiene, a lost car, TVs, computers.”
Their story restores faith that might have been lost or damaged upon hearing about the treachery that’s happened elsewhere.
“We were very conscious about where the money was coming from and what it was used for,” John Masse said. “We had a cruise set and we postponed it because we didn’t want people to think that’s where we spent the money.”
He continued: “It’s unfortunate that when people set up a charity, there will always be those who set it up as a scam. But I don’t know where we would be right now if we didn’t have that GoFundMe page. We want to thank everyone who supported us.”
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304 or rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)