Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: comic con, Comics, entertainment, indiana, kickstarter, river con, south bend

Allegations Of Kickstarter Embezzlement Close South Bend's River Comic Con

"A group of gamers are attempting to bring a gaming/comic book convention to Northern Indiana." This is what River-Con was meant to be. "A one day convention held in South Bend, IN meant for the whole family."

That was the plan for the show, which  raised $4000 of its $2000 Kickstarter goal. And the show was planned to three short weeks.

That was the plan.

The South Bend Gaming Association posted the following on Facebook.

On Wednesday, February 12th the members of the South Bend Gaming Association (SBGA) received a letter from the former Association President notifying members of their mismanagement of SBGA finances stating, "I have embezzled $1,300.00 of the SBGA's funds."

The SBGA has been in operation since September, 2013 and was formed for the sole purpose of bringing a large-scale gaming convention to South Bend. This convention, River-Con, gained popularity among local community members almost overnight and drew media attention all over Michiana. The SBGA promoted River-Con and spent a great deal of time raising funds for the event. As part of this effort, ninety-three people contributed as supporters of River-Con through the Kickstarter organization (www.kickstarter.com). The final amount earned by SBGA after Kickstarter fees totaled $3,502.70.

Since the Kickstarter funds were dispersed, the former board member in question was the sole keeper of SBGA finances, financial accounts, County DBA account and sole proprietor of the SBGA Inc. That member resigned their position as SBGA President, offered to replace the missing money and expressed hope that River-Con will continue to take place as planned.

After sorting through the financial paperwork and records kept by the former board member, the remaining SBGA members found that there had been no accurate record keeping and insufficient evidence to conclude that the $1,300.00 taken was an accurate figure. There is no way to definitively account for the amount of money that may or may not have exchanged hands between this former board member and the vendors, donors and supporters of River-Con. The SBGA unanimously agreed to turn the matter over to the South Bend Police Department for further investigation. A report was filed at the South Bend Police Department on Thursday, February 13th. If you have contributed to the River-Con Kickstarter or experienced any exchange of money for the purposes of River-Con, you are entitled to a refund and should seek recompense from the South Bend Police.

The SBGA is no longer affiliated, funds, accounts, contracts and associated social media pages. For now, all continued SBGA announcements and information regarding this matter will be distributed through the SBGA facebook page. If you have any questions with River-Con or the River-Con facebook page. The SBGA is not in control of River-Con , please contact the SBGA via facebook.

Oooh dear. This wasn't going to go down well, was it? The Kickstarter page has this comment from Nick Dance that gives more details of the letter.

I was a board member of SBGA until I reported Erica Warren to the police. I reported Erica Warren to the police because of this message from her:

It's with a heavy heart that I write this to you all and I know facebook is more then likely the worst way to let you all know. I have done the worst thing I have ever done in my life and I have done it to some of my best friends. You all trusted me and I shattered that trust into a million unfixable pieces.

I have embezzled $1,300.00 of the SBGA's funds.

There is no excuse for what I have done. I kept telling my self I would pay it back but it has snowballed into a lie that is killing me. I have kept financial information from Noah to buy myself time to try to fix this. I have also kept personal financial information from my husband (Justin) to hide what I had done.

I am in the process of getting the money I have taken back to the SBGA. I have a 401K that I can take a loan from and have wheels in motion to do so.

I am stepping down as president (clearly) and will transfer all funds and the DBA to whomever The Board deems fit. I will also transfer all e-mail logins and e-mails I have regarding the convention to Molly. I will be available to answer any questions regarding the convention.

For those who wish to know what the money was used for it was used to pay medical bills. It's not a valid reason…there is no valid reason for what I have done.

Erica Lee Warren

Which is, pretty tragic, and a heartfelt confession. But hardly any compensation for those who had ponied up hard cash, whether on Kickstarter or to the show. On the River Con's own Facebook page, it reads,

River Con is canceled.

Everyone will be fully reimbursed, which includes both Kickstarter donations and payments for vendor spots.

This arrangement will make everyone whole. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

So there's that. Though some aren't too convinced. The South Bend Gaming Association followed up with,

The members currently running the SBGA have issued a formal notice informing the public that we no longer have access to any funds raised for the River-Con event. Those funds were removed from SBGA access and remain under the control of the now resigned head of the SBGA. No current SBGA member was involved in any wrongdoing. Please contact the South Bend Police Department to lodge formal complaints (case #14-2165) or Kickstarter.

And another response, getting a little more personal. Putting a name to a faceless grouping. Welcome, Molly.

Hi Everyone, this is Molly. Thanks to many of you for your polite comments and questions. Handling this mess has been very overwhelming, confusing for even myself and sometimes downright hurtful. Regardless of the frustrations here, some questions have been asked and I realize I have not given very clear answers.

The SBGA Inc. and River-Con kickstarter were set up by Erica Warren. She personally asked people to be involved in these projects under her direction. She referred to us as "The Board" and we continued under that reference. Those of us involved in the planning of River-Con and SBGA events were doing so as volunteers. We were not named officers legally though we were referred to that way by Erica and some of us pleaded with her to file articles of incorporation giving other members legal decision-making rights so that she was not solely responsible for everything. Clearly, this never happened and it was for reasons none of us were made aware of until last Wednesday. If she had given us decision making rights, we would have had the ability to prevent this from happening or at least catch it much sooner.

When all of this was made transparent to the 'members' or more appropriately, 'Erica's board,' she made me the administrator of this page and promptly left the group. The only person with legal claim to the SBGA name is Erica Warren. I am operating this page only to give you all the information you need to attempt recovery of your donated money. And because, quite frankly, its the only centralized means of communication we have left. Continuing to identify ourselves as members of the SBGA we realize is "muddying the waters" and blurring the lines on who is responsible for this theft. That was not my intention.

We have all the documents to verify that Erica Warren is solely responsible for this organization and those documents have been shown to the police.

In light of the confusion that our attempts to keep everyone informed has caused, we will cease posting under the banner of the SBGA and instead refer all questions or concerns to Erica Warren, the South Bend Police Department (case #14-2165) or Kickstarter.

To those of you who have been supportive and reached out in a positive manner, you have my thanks. I will continue doing everything possible to ensure that everyone (us included) get our money back.

Naturally everyone is up in arms, even as everyone is washing hands. Lots of people who had bought tickets, had bought tables, had made plans. WSBT 22, CBS-affiliated station in South Bend, Indiana, reported on the situation, saying,

SBPD Capt. Phil Trent confirmed the investigation, which was launched after organizers of River-Con learned that money to help pay for the event was missing.

And again Kickstarter is under the spotlight again – not so much for its successes, but for its failures. Bleeding Cool remains a strong supporter of social fundraising, but we will continue to keep our eye out for any such Kickstarter Fails…

Thanks to Macey Lavoie for the catch.

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