Former Leaders of the DC Trust, a Non-Profit Dedicated to Helping Children, Charged with Using Organization's Funds for Personal Gain

            WASHINGTON – Edward Davies, 49, and Earl Hamilton, 50, the former executive director and director of operations and finance of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation (“DC Trust”), have been charged with using DC Trust funds to make hundreds of personal purchases, for expenses such as meals, automobile repairs, and personal travel for themselves, their family members, and their friends, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Michael R. Sherwin.

            In an indictment unsealed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the grand jury charged that from late 2012 through early 2016, Davies and Hamilton, who are both currently residing in the Chicago area, engaged in a scheme to defraud the DC Trust by using the organization’s credit cards and debit card to make personal expenditures, by lying to the Trust’s accountants about the nature of these purchases, and by hiding from the board of directors the exorbitant monthly bills that resulted.  Davies and Hamilton each stand charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of credit card fraud.  The indictment alleges that Davies used the organization’s credit card to pay for such extravagances as a $2,000 partial down payment for a new car; a Thanksgiving trip to New York, where he used Trust funds to pay for a hotel room in Times Square and a massage for two; and round-trip airfare, car rental, and lodging for himself, a girlfriend, and two of their children to visit Napa Valley, California.  Hamilton is charged with using the Trust’s credit card to purchase multiple airline tickets for himself and his wife to fly to Florida, and a $700 Norditrac machine, among other personal expenditures.

            The DC Trust was a non-profit organization, created in 1999, to serve as an intermediary to connect philanthropists, government leaders, youth advocates, and representatives from the business community in order to support programs to benefit the children of the District of Columbia.  The organization was dissolved in late 2016, reportedly to cover debts from exorbitant spending on and by staff, including the misuse of organization credit cards.

            An indictment is merely a finding of probable cause by the grand jury.  All criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

            The D.C. Office of the Inspector General, the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and the U.S. Department of Education Office of the Inspector General have been investigating this case.  The case is being prosecuted by the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section of U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.  Assistant U.S Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy is litigating the case, with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Amanda Rohde.