The financial records of a local charity were questioned as the former CEO’s trial started this week in Wood County.

Linda Greene, who led Impact With Hope for many years, was indicted in February 2021 for using charitable donations for personal use.

She served as president and chief executive officer of the Waterville-based charity, which was formerly known as ISOH Impact.

Greene’s trial started Monday with opening statements in the courtroom of Wood County Common Pleas Judge Joel Kuhlman.

Doug Kinder is a former senior investigator for the Wood County Prosecutor’s Office and currently intelligence manager for Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center.

During Tuesday’s testimony, he explained how donations made on the Impact With Hope website with the expressed intent for specific purposes went into the charity’s general fund.

Greene never reported on her taxes benefits she received, including use of a company car and personal loans from the charity, Kinder said.

Kinder added that he never found documentation supporting approval of the some of the loans she received from the charity.

Also discussed were the fundraisers that were held to construct a Hope Center in Levis Commons. Funds raised eventually made their way into the general fund, he said.

“By 2019, 2020, the money was all gone. There was no designation for it,” Kinder said.

The lot that had been donated for the Hope Center is empty, he said.

Between 2001 and 2018, Greene used $440,406 in charity funds for her personal gain, including for landscaping, a swimming pool and her animals. Some of that money was transferred into her personal account and paid to her as reimbursement.

He found evidence Greene had reimbursed herself for expenses already paid by the charity, Kinder said.

“It was her charity and she does all this work for the charity and she was entitled to do that,” he concluded.

From Jan. 1, 2011. to Nov. 28, 2018, Greene is accused of soliciting contributions and misleading donors that the money would be used for charitable purposes when in fact they were used for personal use. According to court papers, the victims were elderly persons or disabled adults and the amount received was $37,000 or more from each.

Greene also has been accused of stealing more than $150,000 from the charity in money, services and reimbursements between Sept. 16, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2018.

Between June 8, 2012, and Nov. 29, 2018, she is accused of using telecommunication services to defraud an unnamed victim of $7,500 or more but less than $150,000.

During that same time, Greene allegedly falsified or destroyed accounting records, reimbursement/receipt records and other financial records to conceal the loss of $150,000 from Impact With Hope Ministries.

Impact With Hope collects items for medical, hunger and disaster relief.

Also on Tuesday, Conika Brooks, who works in the charitable law section of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, was called as a state witness.

Brooks said that her office is notified of complaints and initiates investigation.

Brooks explained how Impact With Hope didn’t provide a separation of financial activities and ensured more than one person oversaw the checkbook.

“No one person should be in charge,” Brooks said.

The Impact board was provided financial statements, but those documents did not capture the compensation that Greene received, Brooks said.

There was a lot of movement of funds from the charity’s account, and her office found several checks written and cashed by Greene, Brooke said.

Greene had rejected plea offers to amend the charge of prohibited acts and practices for charities to a third-degree felony from a second-degree felony.

The remaining three charges, which included telecommunication fraud, tampering with records and aggravated theft, all third-degree felonies, would have remained unchanged.

Court adjourned before the defense could cross-examine Kinder.

Greene’s trial is scheduled to last until Friday in Wood County Common Pleas Court.