Not long after Esther Lofgren and her U.S. teammates won the Olympic Games women’s eight gold medal, she returned to the place that launched her Olympic voyage.

Lofgren began rowing at the Newport Aquatic Center as a 14-year-old in 1998. Fourteen years later she was back at NAC sharing her gold medal, placing it into young hands that also held onto a new generation of Olympic dreams.

“I’m so excited to share this medal and my journey,” Lofgren said.

Lofgren is one of 12 NAC alumni to win an Olympic title, a gold rush that has brought NAC global recognition and helped turn Orange County into an Olympic superpower.

But NAC’s golden reputation has been tarnished recently.

The current generation of young NAC rowers hoping to follow a path similar to Lofgren’s to the Olympic Games trains against the backdrop of allegations of financial irregularities and uncertainty, the firing of a highly regarded coach and director, and sexual harassment.

Financial records and reports, including credit card bills and a forensic accounting analysis, emails, and memos obtained by the Orange County Register as well as interviews reveal a tax exempt, non-profit organization where employees use NAC credit cards for personal use and to bill NAC for hundreds of thousands of dollars in materials and supplies for for-profit companies using NAC facilities in violation of laws governing non-profits.

The financial records, emails and interviews also raise questions about accounting practices where hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by parents for NAC’s junior rowing program, the club’s Team USA and college pipeline, have gone unaccounted for.

Mainly the documents and interviews present a portrait of how for years NAC executive director Billy Whitford and other employees have used NAC funds and facilities to their own financial and personal benefit unchecked by a board of directors that has purged coaches, employees and other board members who have blown the whistle on the questionable financial practices.

“He’s a bad guy and he’s protected by (the board) and their cronyism. It’s bad,” Pat Rolfes, former NAC junior program director, said referring to Whitford. “He’s not doing it for the kids, the community. He’s doing it for Billy Whitford. He doesn’t really care about the kids. He really just cares about his kingdom and the money.

“The financial mismanagement is ridiculous.”

Whitford argues that NAC’s financial practices are legitimate.

“The NAC specifically disagrees that providing ‘perks’ and benefits to its employees is improper as both for profit and non-profit corporations do this in order to maintain a happy and motivated workforce,” Whitford said in a statement to the Register.

Among the Register’s findings:

Whitford and three other NAC employees charged more than $1.2 million to NAC credit cards between from 2011 to 2016, according to credit card records and a board-commissioned forensic analysis of the organization’s finances.

“There are many credit card purchases that appear to be personal nature,” said a 2017 report of the forensic analysis by Hanzich & Company, a Newport Beach-based certified public accounting firm.

Nearly $650,000 of those purchases were for meals, groceries, trips, gifts, Angels and horse show tickets, payment of traffic and parking tickets and other items appearing unrelated to NAC business and in potential violation of Internal Revenue Service guidelines, according to credit card statements, receipts and financial records.

These charges were flagged by Hanzich.

“Additional inquiry needed to determine if the” charges “are NAC or potentially personal in nature,” the Hanzich said.

The Hanzich report added “there is no evidence, based upon reporting in the general ledger, that there were any reimbursements for personal expenses paid for by the Organization for the benefit of the employee.” Former board members and employees also said in interviews and emails that the personal charges on NAC credit cards have not been repaid.

According to an NAC parent, board member Dr. Bill Grant has acknowledged that under Whitford a for-profit paddle manufacturing company and a for-profit cash boat-repair business were run out of NAC premises using NAC employees and materials purchased with NAC credit cards. David Hanzich’s company flagged more than $340,000 in questionable supplies/shop purchases.

A hidden audio recording device in the NAC board room was recovered by Newport Beach Police Department. The device was placed in the room by Whitford, according to memos, court filings and interviews.

NAC varsity girls head coach Garrett Pickard on at least two occasions has made inappropriate comments about young female rowers’ breasts, according to multiple emails and three NAC parents. Pickard’s comments have been reported to USA Rowing, the sport’s national governing body, by an NAC parent.

Whitford fired Rolfes as junior program director on August 1 after Rolfes raised questions about Whitford and board’s financial practices, in particular NAC’s accounting of hundreds of thousands of dollars raised by junior program parents. Board members Grant, Jon Van Cleave, James Netzer and Greg Collin removed Bruce Ibbetson and Donna Warwick from the board on Sept. 4. Ibbetson and Warwick have repeatedly questioned the spending and accounting practices of Whitford and the board. Warwick and Ibbetson have filed a civil suit against Whitford, Grant, Van Cleave, Netzer and five others in Orange County Superior Court.

“Perhaps you should all start addressing the long list of real concerns and questions asked,” Meredith Cagle, an NAC parent wrote to the board in a March 25 email. “Misappropriation, theft, embezzlement of funds. Illegal placement and use of audio recording device. Lack of oversight. Lack of fiduciary responsibility. Lies. Misinformation. Lack of transparency. Harassment. Operation of a private business in direct conflict with lease agreement with City of Newport Beach. Failure to operate under the governing documents of the organization (whether you use the 1989 or 2014 version of the bylaws – the board still doesn’t follow them). The list goes on. Do you have explanations for any of these allegations? Updates on your investigations into any of these matters? Please, inform us.”

Whitford and his attorney deny that he has committed any wrongdoing. Instead Whitford said he and the four remaining NAC board members are the targets of a campaign by Ibbetson, Warwick, Rolfes and a group of junior rowing parents to gain control of the organization.

An “attempt at a hostile takeover of NAC,” Whitford said.

“The Disgruntled Directors are not attempting to help the NAC, they are attempting to sabotage it and after they destroy it, they have a plan to replace it with their own organization,” Whitford wrote in his statement. “… A good organization like the NAC should not have to endure the false accusations that have been made by the Disgruntled Directors … but because it is a good organization, it is also worth fighting to preserve.”

Whitford reports to a board of directors to which members are elected by other board members.

David Dimitruk, Whitford’s attorney, said the criticism of Whitford and the remaining board members also stems in large part by what he described as misguided belief by junior rowing parents that they should have a voice in how NAC spends its funding. Instead, Whitford and the board have free reign to decide spend NAC funds.

“There is no policy requiring that money for one program be dedicated to that program,” Dimitruk said. “They don’t want their money to pay for other programs in NAC. They want NAC to become a voting membership. They want a voice on how NAC uses junior rowing dues.

“That’s not right. If you buy an Angels’ ticket you don’t have a right to tell Arte Moreno how to run the Angels. And you have no right to tell NAC how to run their business.”

One NAC parent, Chrissie Emmel, raised a number of concerns about financial issues at the center with Grant during a March meeting. Emmel detailed their conversation in an email back to Grant shortly after the meeting.

“Mr. Grant acknowledged that Mr. Whitford ran the cash, boat repair business, as well as the paddle-making business at the expense of the NAC,” Emmel wrote, recounting the meeting to Grant. “Mr. Grant acknowledged that things needed to be restructured at the NAC, but also acknowledged that the board has not held Mr. Whitford accountable for his own admitted illicit actions, Mr. Granted stated, ‘Billy has been running the NAC for 20 years. While I agree that he needs help on running the financials of the organization, I’m not sure what else we should hold him accountable for. I believe things need to be restructured, but I don’t want to take away Billy’s identity in the process.’”

Multiple attempts to reach Grant for comment over a more than week long period were unsuccessful.

Whitford, 60, was among the Newport Aquatic Center’s founding members in 1982. Construction of the club was completed in 1987 but Whitford headed to Hawaii where he won Molokai Hoe, one of the world’s biggest outrigger canoe races. He also helped run the Molokai Ranch, whose 55,577 acres make up a third of the island and was put up for sale last year for $260 million.

Whitford told the Register in 2015 that he returned to the mainland and NAC in 1997 to fix the center’s financial problems. In addition to its rowing program, NAC also offers programs in canoeing, kayaking, and outrigger canoes for athletes from beginners to Olympic level athletes.

Instead, former board members and officials and current NAC parents maintain the center has often been on the brink of financial disaster in recent years because of Whitford’s mismanagement and his and other NAC employees use of funds for personal expenditures and the for-profit businesses.

“There’s no oversight on any expense, anything that Billy wants to spend money on,” Emmel said. “When he wants to spend money, he just does it and the board doesn’t even approve it.”

Whitford has maintained control of the center by eliminating, with the board’s help, anyone who questions his handling of NAC’s finances, according to parents, and former board members and top employees.

“Of all the malfeasance that has been proven to have been going on at NAC perhaps the most disturbing is the tyrannical behavior of Billy and his willing protectors on the board,” Scott Richter, an NAC parent, complained in an email. “Publicly berating coaches threatening them and pulling stunts to make their jobs more difficult in addition to sowing division like a schoolyard bully. This is their Ohana; good vibes for sure. The board knows all of this and not only turns a blind eye but works actively to cover it up.”

According to the Internal Revenue Services Compliance Guide for 501(c)(3) charities “A public charity is prohibited from allowing more than an insubstantial accrual of private benefit to individuals or organizations. This restriction is to ensure that a tax-exempt organization serves a public interest, not a private one. If a private benefit is more than incidental, it could jeopardize the organization’s tax-exempt status.”

Richard Crom, staff assistant for IRS Exempt Organizations Customer Education and Outreach office, told the Nonprofit Risk Management Center that “A 501(c)(3) organization’s activities should be directed exclusively toward some exempt purpose. Its activities should not serve the private interests, or private benefit, of any individual or organization (other than the 501(c)(3) organization) more than insubstantially. The intent of a 501(c)(3) organization is to ensure it serves a public interest, not a private one.”

Crom also said, “A 501(c)(3) organization is prohibited from allowing its income or assets to benefit insiders (people with a personal or private interest in the activities of the organization). Insiders are typically board members, officers, directors, and important employees.”

Whitford and three other employees between 2011 and 2016 charged $648,199 on NAC credit cards for what Hanzich described as potentially personal expenditures. These charges included thousands of dollars annually in local meals and gas charges.

“We found he was filling up anything and everything he wanted to,” former board member Warwick said of Whitford.

Whitford has admitted to “purchasing two trucks in his own name using NAC funds” and using “NAC funds to pay a $10,000 personal penalty to the IRS, and had the NAC expense the transaction,” Rolfes said in a sworn affidavit. Whitford and Dimitruk deny this.

Between 2011 and 2016 $6,877.79 in meals were charged to a NAC Chase credit card issued to Whitford, according to financial records.

“The accusation that I ‘regularly use NAC credit cards for person use’ is false,” Whitford said.

The expenditures for the four employees also included payments to a cheerleading company and the California Beach Volleyball Association. NAC credit cards and bank accounts paid for travel, cell phone service for spouses, drug prescriptions and medical treatment, gift certificates from Lululemon and more than $700 in 2014 for flowers.

Whitford used his NAC-issued Chase card to pay a September 2012 $80 parking ticket with the Newport Harbor Patrol and a 2016 $58 parking ticket in Hermosa Beach.

Potentially personal expenditures by the four employees were often mislabeled on NAC expense documents, according the Hanzich audit and other NAC financial records.

A $70 Lululemon gift certificate was listed as a “meals and events” expense. A 2014 $71.98 purchase of mask, snorkel and fin set from West Marine was categorized as “shop equipment and supplies.” Volleyballs purchased for $1,693 were listed under “repairs and maintenance” and “coolers.”

“I used to be a member of the Newport Aquatic Center,” Brook Severance wrote in a January 13 email to Warwick. “I primarily used the weight room, but occasionally used some of the club boats. During that time I worked as the Finance Manager at Mikasa Sports. I got to know Billy Whitford and he asked me if he could buy some volleyballs for his daughter. I said sure, happy to get the business. I was a bit surprised when he picked up the balls that he used a NAC check, but did not question him. This happened two or three times and the total was in the $1,000 range.”

Severance added in another email to Warwick, “Each sale was between $300 and $500. So, I was being conservative saying $1000.”

Potential personal use purchases decreased after board members became aware of Hanzich’s initial findings in the spring of 2017.

Van Cleave, the board’s treasurer, wrote in a May 11, 2017 email that a $100 Amazon Prime membership fee charge by an employee was the “only instance of a mistaken credit card … Billy and I have noticed in the past two years.”

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2028 Olympic logos released for games in Los Angeles But the forensic analysis, credit card and financial records and receipts show that an NAC employee charged $523 at the Guitar Center on October 16, 2015. In 2015 and 2016 employees used NAC credit cards to purchase a pet door, a toilet seat and water fixtures, both “residential grade,” a 10-foot inflatable snowman, four Christmas trees in 2015 and a Belgian waffle iron. There was also a full length hooded Halloween cape purchased by a NAC employee. The employee posted a photo of her daughter in the cape on social media a few days after the purchase. The Halloween costume was listed as “equipment” on a NAC expense form.

Warwick said there is no record of NAC being reimbursed for these expenditures.

Financial records also show that Chase charged NAC $14,267 in interest charges and late fees between 2011 and 2016.

Whitford, Dimitruk and board members describe the Hanzich financial analysis as inaccurate and maintain Hanzich actually “retracted” the analysis. They repeatedly stress that the analysis was not an audit, something Hanzich doesn’t dispute.

“In fact, the scope of my work is in excess of what would be required for an audit as you can probably assess from the recent NAC audit that was conducted by an independent accountant,” Hanzich wrote in a June 20, 2017 email to Warwick.

Instead of retracting the forensic analysis, Hanzich told the NAC board in a July 13, 2017 letter that they could “no longer rely” on analysis because a board member shared it with Whitford, likely violating Hanzich’s agreement with the board and making he and his firm vulnerable to a lawsuit.

“Because of your actions, you may be in breach of our agreement dated Sept. 30, 2016 and could be responsible for any economic damages that I incur,” Hanzich wrote the board.

“Regrettably, the Board can no longer rely on my report as the underlying evidence and conclusions were compromised due to unauthorized disclosure.”

In a series of emails to Warwick, Hanzich is even more blunt.

“My report was prepared directly for the board, not employees,” Hanzich wrote in a July 6, 2017 email. “The engagement letter was addressed to the Board not Mr. Whitford, an employee. If they were unclear as to the meaning of ‘management,’ I should have been informed regarding their decision to give the report to Mr. Whitford.

“My response would have been ‘no,’ due to the fact that Mr. Whitford may be involved in the potential fraud.”

In another email to Warwick, Hanzich wrote “The collusion issue. So a board member, in the middle of a fraud investigation regarding an employee, is going to tip off the employee. Results, web sites removes, repair shop cleaned out, boats removed from storage areas.

“My question is, what else is this employee going to do to the original records to possibly cover things up before any further investigation is conducted?”

Hanzich also wrote that the board member who shared the analysis with Whitford “has possibly committed obstruction, collusion and potentially breached his fiduciary responsibility with NAC and its stakeholders. His allegiance should be with the organization, not an employee.”

Warwick first began looking a close look into the center’s finances in 2016 after noticing significant charges to NAC cards for the center’s shop.

The Hanzich analysis and other financial records would reveal and Grant would later confirm to Emmel that a for-profit canoe paddle company, and a for-profit cash boat repair and painting business were being operated out of the NAC shop. Both businesses were operated by NAC employees who used supplies and assets including materials, paints, parts and tools purchased with NAC funds, according to financial records, interviews and a sworn affidavit by Rolfes. NAC facilities were also used to distribute canoes for Puakea, according to records, interviews and the Rolfes’ affadavit.

These for-profit businesses put a strain on the non-profit NAC’s finances and jeopardized the organization’s 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. Between 2011 and 2016 NAC funds were used to purchase at least $342,579 in materials for what Hanzich flagged as potentially non-NAC purposes.

“They are extremely high and very unusual,” Rolfes said in an email to the Register referring to the shop expenses.

It is an opinion that is shared with NAC parents and former employees.

“Concern Raised: The fact that Puakea Designs (a for-profit company) operated a paddle manufacturing business out the NAC shop,” Emmel wrote in the March email to Grant detailing their conversation. “Mr. Grant’s Response: Mr. Grant acknowledged that this occurred. Mr. Grant further acknowledged that the for-profit paddle making operation on NAC premises financially impacted the NAC as, after the Board voted to shut it down, the NAC’s shop expenses have substantially dropped.”

Indeed between 2015 and 2017 NAC shop expenses have dropped nearly 300 percent, according to financial records.

Dimitruk said there was no financial agreement or partnership between Whitford and Puakea. Dimitruk later said “NAC has a business right to try and see if some programs can help the business. It tried to do this with making some paddles and it didn’t work out and it was stopped.”

Dimitruk and Whitford said charges that a for-profit boat repair operation using NAC funds, employees and facilities were “false.”

Current NAC parents, and former board members and employees said that Whitford has frequently used junior rowing program funds to cover expenses and debts for other NAC programs.

Whitford threatened junior rowing program parents with “locking up the boats” at the center’s 2015 “Back to Rowing Night” if the parents didn’t raise $250,000, according to interviews with parents and memos and emails.

“It’s been proven that funds have been stripped from the Junior Rowing program to support the NAC’s financial inefficiencies and illicit activities that the Board has turned a blind eye to for years,” Emmel wrote in the mail to Grant. “This is not the first time that Junior Rowing parents have voiced these concerns, however it is the first time that so many of the concerns being voiced have hard evidence and proof of the wrongdoings going on. Some of the examples of the wrongdoing are $227,000 stripped from the Junior Rowing program which was proven by the Hanzich financial analysis report. Bill stated: ‘Yes, the Hanzich report is correct and the money was taken from the Junior Rowing program to pay for other NAC operational expenses and other NAC programs. The money was not taken from the NAC and used for anyone’s personal use. It was used by the NAC for the people it serves.’

“Current use of Junior Rowing funds being used by Billy Whitford to cover NAC General’s cash flow problems upwards of $80,000,” Emmel continued in the email touching on another concern. “Bill stated: Yes, this is a problem and it is still occurring today. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The NAC General cannot continue to run at a deficit. General needs a ‘float’ or reserve and each program must pay for itself. There are checks and balances in place that haven’t been followed. They will be followed now.”

But current NAC parents said NAC officials and coaches have recently told them that junior program fees will likely increase in the coming year. The prospect of the fees increase comes at a time when the junior program finished the most recent season with a $194,000 surplus, according to former club employees and several parents.

“It’s alarming,” Emmel said in an interview.

Also alarming, parents said, is the hidden microphone discovered in the NAC board room.

“On February 6, 2018, Detectives from the Newport Beach Police Department conducted an investigation into reports of audio recording within the Newport Aquatic Center,” David Mock, a Newport Beach Police Department detective wrote in a Feb. 15 email NAC board member James Netzer . “As part of our investigation, we had a CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) Technician inspect the wiring and computer related to the video security system. As a result of the investigation, a single compact microphone was located between a ceiling tile and T-rail support near the center of the multi-purpose room. The microphone was determined not to be recording during the investigation…”

Mock added in the email “At this time, our investigation into this matter is concluded, as there is not sufficient evidence to forward to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration.”

Grant told Emmel in March, “Billy told me that he originally had the microphone installed because of a Drug Rehab group that was using the NAC classroom. He told me that the person in charge of the group gave him permission to utilize the hidden microphone. The Board still needs to meet in Executive Session over this, but the police report states that the wires from the microphone to the computer were cut midway up in the rafters.”

Whitford confirmed that he placed the microphone in the room. He said he did so a few years ago after a fight broke out in the room during a meeting of an Alcoholics Anonymous group that was using the venue.

Whitford, Dimitruk said, planted the microphone “to protect the Newport Aquatic Center.”

Despite the bugging incident and the financial issues, Whitford remains secure in his position at NAC, especially with some of his chief critics now vanquished.

Rolfes was highly regarded both within NAC and nationally for guiding a junior program to a string of regional and national triumphs on the water while cutting expenses and raising revenues. But Whitford fired Rolfes on August 1, just weeks after he gave a sworn statement in Ibbetson and Warwick’s lawsuit against Whitford and the board members and eight months after he raised concerns about Van Cleave’s treasurer’s report.

Dimitruk declined to go into the specific reasons for Rolfes’ firing.

“The Pat Rolfes employment matter is something I’m not at liberty to tell you of the grounds (for the dismissal),” Dimitruk said. “But he was terminated for cause.”

But Rolfes said what he characterizes as a “wrongful termination” as an act of retaliation by Whitford for his role as a whistleblower.

“To say that I was terminated based on my job performance is not only groundless, but ridiculous in nature, especially when compared to Billy Whitford’s job performance,” Rolfes wrote in August 3 letter to the board. “The Board has consistently failed to hold him accountable for his job performance, and has not acted on my numerous and well documented instances of retaliation by Billy Whitford against me and others. The Board has repeatedly failed to take steps to protect me from retaliation by Billy Whitford as outlined herein. For example, the NAC has no effective whistleblower policy and when I reported to the Board many of the above referenced points, some members of the Board leaked that confidential information directly to Billy Whitford, thus causing additional harm and retaliation towards me.”

Board members Susan Skinner and Steve Patterson resigned from the board earlier this year. Then Ibbetson and Warwick were voted off the board by its other four members.

“PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that this notice is intended to be private and confidential for consideration only by the board members of the NAC,” Grant wrote to the board in an Aug. 24 letter. “You should not circulate, forward or re-publish this notice and any circulation, forwarding or re-publishing of the notice is disapproved.”

The 32-page letter set up a meeting proposed for Aug. 30 to, according to Grant “to consider whether Bruce Ibbetson and Donna Warwick should be removed from the board.”

Ibbetson and Warwick were voted off on Sept. 4, leaving the board with four members. NAC by-laws require the board to have “at least” eight members.

Dimitruk said the pair were voted off the board because of what he called their repeated efforts “to destroy the Newport Aquatic Center.”

But both Ibbetson and Warwick said for years they tried to work with the other board members to bring greater financial stability and transparency to NAC only to be rebuffed.

“We tried for years to work with you and solve the long standing problems,” Ibbetson wrote in an email to the board. “You have only refused, obstructed, and covered up the mess. We have the evidence that, led by Jon Van Cleave, you always intended to ignore and dispose of any findings in the 3rd party, Hanzich, forensic report. You wanted to remove Donna & I for years, because we pushed forward solid evidence of massive financial fraud. Now, you simply want to avoid all by eliminating anyone who challenges you with legitimate claims.”

Said Warwick “Anytime you asked for the financials, they just ignored you. We were just a nuisance to them.”

The latest crisis to face the board are allegations that Garrett Pickard, the girls varsity rowing head coach, has made a series of inappropriate comments. During a Sept. 6 training session Pickard instructed the girls “you know, like tits up, boobs up, chest up” when discussing rowing posture, according to three NAC parents. During a recent practice Pickard also referred to the girls as “spoiled Newport bitches,” the parents said.

Pickard has also sent texts referring to how a young female rower’s breasts look in a tank top, according to a Liz Ewanick, mother of a NAC female rower.

“That’s crossing a line,” Ewanick said.

Pickard did not respond to requests for comment.

A formal complaint detailing Pickard’s alleged comments has been filed with USA Rowing, the sport’s national governing body.

“To the Board: You have been put on notice of potential harassment. What will you do?” Lauren Meskins wrote in a Sept. 11 email. “ This type of language/behavior is unacceptable – especially in today’s world.”

Ewanick said she has a “fear of retaliation” from NAC employees and board members for coming forward about Pickard’s alleged comments. She is also concerned that the scandals at NAC will scare off college coaches.

“My fear,” Ewanick said, “is that when my daughter is being recruited (college coaches) will go don’t bother with girls in the NAC program. That program is a joke.”