Tampa Man indicted, accused of embezzling funds from Salvation Army

FLORIDA – A Tampa man accused of embezzling funds from the Salvation Army has been charged with preparing false tax returns.

Kenneth Fowler has been charged with three counts of making and filing false federal income tax returns, said United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg, who announced the return of an indictment on Monday charging Fowler.

If convicted, Fowler faces a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment for each count.

According to the indictment, between the end of December 2013 and August 2018, Fowler, who reportedly was then working as a payroll coordinator at the Salvation Army Suncoast Adult Rehabilitation Center in St. Peterburg, engaged in a scheme to embezzle funds from the Salvation Army.

Fowler is accused of falsely altering records to reflect that employees who had left the employment of the Salvation Army were still on its payroll so that Fowler could collect their paychecks and ultimately forge their signatures and deposit those checks into his own personal bank accounts, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida (USAO).

Allegedly, Fowler also misdirected direct deposit checks from the former employees’ bank accounts into his own personal bank account. In this manner, the USAO said Fowler obtained more than $239,000 in Salvation Army funds to which he was not entitled.

According to prosecutors, Fowler failed to include those stolen funds as income on his 2016, 2017, and 2018 Individual Income Tax Returns. By doing so, he avoided the payment of substantial taxes due and owing to the United States, the USAO said.

An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, with assistance from the Pinellas Park Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Jay L. Hoffer is prosecuting it.