Nonprofit Watch: Why Did a Criminal Investigation Take Three Years?

Charges of embezzlement, money laundering and filing a false state tax return were filed Friday in an LA Superior Court complaint against the husband and wife team who lead Ivy Academia, a government-funded nonprofit public charter school with an annual budget of more than $5 million.
The school’s founders, Eugene Selivanov and Tatyana Berkovich, were charged with transferring more than $200,000 in school funds to for-profit companies they control, including a preschool and a summer camp.
The couples’ attorney, who called them “educators and innovators, not criminals” said “the facts will show that they acted honorably, ethically and legally.”  (More from the attorney here.)
 
According to the Los Angeles Times, much of the case stems from an early 2007 LAUSD audit which found evidence of co-mingling of funds between the school and the founders’ private businesses. The founders have said they improved their bookkeeping after the audit, and never misused any money.
Now the courts will decide if there was any criminal wrongdoing.  But we as taxpayers need to ask why, in the wake of the negative audit findings, it took so long to bring this case to court?
The full text of the complaint is available here.
-Steve Askin
CPA Director Steve Askin formerly served as Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of a Long Beach-based Charter School