A veterans assistance charity co-founded by former Rep. Duncan L. Hunter shut down after its president, Patricia Driscoll, was indicted.

Driscoll’s trial is approaching on charges that she used more than $900,000 of the charity’s money for her personal benefit, which she denies.

Suspect expenditures included a trip to a jewelry store, a grocery store, a dermatologist and $65,220 in legal fees related to her accusations of domestic violence against her ex-boyfriend, famed NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, in 2014, according to court records.

After a helicopter crash during a 1990 special operations mission in Panama left Army Master Sgt. Tom Caldwell paralyzed below the waist, he returned home to North Carolina.

Relying on a wheelchair and unable to afford home improvements to accommodate it, he spent many an hour in his bedroom, wishing for a window so he could watch his grandchildren when they played outside.

He asked the Armed Forces Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based charity, for help getting a window installed. The charity did him one better, building him a new, wheelchair-accessible home so he could join his grandchildren outside instead of just watching them.


“It’s much easier for me to get around in and I have a large roll-in shower now, which is really the best part,” Caldwell said by telephone. “It’s one of those little things you don’t realize how important it was to you until you miss it. I have the ramp in back that makes it easy to get outside and I have a ramp that goes into the garage also. It’s very easy to get around the house and that’s been good for me.”

Caldwell is one of hundreds of veterans helped over the years by the charity, which ceased operations in October 2016 amid a scandal involving its president, Patricia Driscoll. Her trial on allegations that she misused charity money is scheduled for June 6 in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia.

Driscoll, 40, of Maryland, resigned her position at the nonprofit’s helm in July 2015 after 12 years of service. The charity was co-founded by former Rep. Duncan L. Hunter, R-Alpine, and Driscoll worked to support veterans with both him and his son and congressional successor, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter.

According to its 2015 tax return, the Armed Forces Foundation had determined with “high certainty” that, since 2006, Driscoll had misused $906,573 in foundation money and assets for “excess benefits” and expenses unrelated to charity business, including travel, personal gifts and makeup. During the same years, the foundation reported about $44 million in revenue, according to the public tax records.


A sworn search warrant affidavit from authorities in Driscoll’s criminal case alleges foundation funds were used for $129,876 of legal costs for law firms to represent Driscoll in personal legal proceedings including a child custody dispute with her ex-husband, and a hearing for temporary protection from her ex-boyfriend, NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, whom she accused of domestic violence.

The warrant also said the nonprofit, acting at Driscoll’s direction, spent at least $130,907 to pay Driscoll’s for-profit defense business’ credit card charges in 2012 and 2013. Investigators said the “individual charges appear overwhelmingly personal in nature,” with transactions at vendors including Tiffany and Co. jewelry store, a dermatologist, Giant Food grocery store, Toys ‘R’ Us and the Golden Haven Hot Springs Resort in California’s wine country.

Driscoll denies that she used charity funds to pay her personal expenses. She was indicted in September 2016 on eight felony counts including fraud and tax evasion, according to court records. She pleaded not guilty to all charges and successfully got the court to dismiss one, involving tax law.

Tom Caldwell, left, looks on as James Fenlon, top, and Sean Conway, bottom, both of Armed Forces Foundation, bring a new dresser into his home in Wade, N.C., in 2010. Staff photo by Stephanie Bruce. (Fayetteville Observer / used by permission)


‘A good choice’

Retired Navy engineer Jim Gorab established the Armed Forces Foundation in 2001 with help from former Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey and Hunter, who served 14 terms in Congress, ran for president in 2008 and was succeeded in office by his son.

The elder Hunter volunteered for the organization in its early years, then took an official position as an unpaid member of the board as his career in public office wound down. He served as chairman before leaving the foundation in 2012.

Speaking in September 2013 at an event in Washington, D.C., Driscoll described a meeting in which the elder Hunter and Saxton, R-New Jersey, recruited her in 2001 to lead the foundation.

The event organizer, the conservative nonprofit Ripon Society, posted a video of the event on Youtube the same month. The younger Hunter also spoke at the event.


“Duncan’s dad and Jimmy Saxton started this organization, and both sat me down for breakfast one day and they – they did it before 9/11 – and they said, ‘How would you like to run this show?’” Driscoll said at the event.

Duncan L. Hunter said during a recent telephone interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune that he did not recall the meeting Driscoll described, but he did not doubt that they met for breakfast to talk about the Armed Forces Foundation’s future.

He said the organization’s principal founder, Gorab, knew and liked Driscoll and had identified her as his choice to lead the foundation. Gorab died in 2015, according to public records.

“It was Jim Gorab’s call to have her as his successor,” Hunter said. “We told Jim that she was a good choice. What we needed was people who had a real heart for the vets that were coming back and Patricia evidenced all that.”


Driscoll got involved in the defense industry after meeting her second husband, Geoff Hermanstorfer, according to an ESPN article in 2015. Hermanstorfer worked in special operations, which had long fascinated Driscoll.

Having forged political connections on the Washington, D.C. social scene, Driscoll, a long-time gun enthusiast, launched her own defense company, Frontline Defense Systems, according to the article. She landed government defense contracts for the equipment her company sold. Her business took her to various countries, including Afghanistan.

Frontline Defense Systems was awarded more than $5 million in government contracts between 2007 and 2012, according to government data aggregating website InsideGov.com.

The largest award was a $1.9-million sole-source contract awarded in 2010 by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Contracting Division, according to the government data website usaspending.gov. The contract was a purchase order for “DRT equipment” for “King Air.” The product was described as “communications security equipment and components.”


Twentyfold increase in revenue

Driscoll became president and executive director of the Armed Forces Foundation in 2003, according to an archived version of the foundation’s now-defunct website.

She remained at the charity’s helm until she resigned in 2015, tax records show. Under her leadership, the foundation’s annual revenue grew from $236,000 in 2004 to $5.1 million in 2015.

As revenue grew, so, too, did the organization and the scale of its efforts to help military families and advocate for veterans’ needs, tax records show.

In 2004, the organization was run entirely by volunteers and focused primarily on organizing fishing trips to improve veterans’ mental health, tax records showed. By 2015, it had a paid staff and was producing public awareness campaigns, providing therapy and addiction counseling, hosting youth sports camps and helping individual families in need pay for everything from car insurance to housing.


From 2006 to 2015, the foundation provided financial assistance to between 180 and 220 military families annually, according to a statement the charity posted on its website in late 2016 announcing its plans to close.

The elder Hunter said he left the nonprofit’s board in 2012 after he left Washington, D.C., and returned home to San Diego. He told the Union-Tribune he reviewed the nonprofit’s books in 2011 and did not see any red flags that signaled possible misspending.

Hunter said he did have some concerns, but they were the result of philosophical differences with the foundation’s leadership — and many other veteran nonprofits’ leaderships, for that matter — about how to most effectively spend contributed funds. He said he suggested in a letter to foundation leadership that it should try to trim administrative expenses where possible.

“What I did, was say, ‘Let’s have a goal of not having administrative salaries exceed a certain percentage of the overall budget,’” Hunter said. “That was a recommendation. I laid that out as a goal to work to that. So that manifests my philosophy on foundations. I think most of these foundations that are veteran-oriented are top heavy because it’s a natural thing — they grow.”


As for Driscoll, Hunter said he did not know enough about the facts behind her indictment to comment on it. He said that regardless of whether she made mistakes, it was important not to lose sight of the good she did for veterans.

“My feeling is that people should be appreciated for the positive things that they bring to something,” Hunter said. “Patricia brought very productive fundraising and she brought together a lot of good programs and veterans had a lot of good experiences doing those programs.”

He said Driscoll and the foundation “did a lot of good for a lot of people.”

Proud of veterans work

Driscoll’s trial later this year promises to be colorful.


She was previously in the news in 2014 for a bitter dispute with her ex-boyfriend, NASCAR’s Busch, known as “The Outlaw.”

The two met in 2010 and started dating. Driscoll recruited Busch and NASCAR itself to help the Armed Forces Foundation’s cause. Working together, they raised money to assist military families and brought veterans to races to boost morale.

The couple broke up in 2014, and Driscoll accused Busch of domestic violence. She alleged he smashed her head against a wall in a motor home at Dover International Speedway on Sept. 26, 2014. She sought a temporary restraining order against him, leading to a court hearing in which Busch testified under oath that he believed Driscoll was a paid assassin.

According to an article published Jan. 13, 2015, in USA Today, Busch testified that one evening, when he and Driscoll were in El Paso, Texas, Driscoll had left wearing camouflage and boots. He said she returned wearing a trench coat over an evening gown spattered with blood and “other matter.”


The next day, Driscoll issued a statement that said “some of the stories” Busch told on the stand were “straight from” a movie script she had been writing, according to an article USA Today published Jan. 14, 2015. Driscoll’s statement went on to say that Busch “clearly believes fiction is reality.”

She declined through her attorney to comment for this story.

NASCAR suspended Busch in early 2015 amid the allegations and later reinstated him when prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.

Within months, Driscoll was making headlines again, this time because of her resignation from the Armed Forces Foundation amid allegations of misspending charity funds.


Driscoll’s attorney in the criminal matter, Brian Stolarz of the Alexandria, Virginia-based law firm LeClair Ryan, sent the Union-Tribune a statement on his client’s behalf in response to a request for comment.

“Ms. Driscoll is proud of her work for veterans and looks forward to her day in court,” the statement said.

‘Good friends’

Driscoll happens to be friendly with Hunter’s son and successor, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine, who has legal troubles of his own. He is under federal criminal investigation for alleged misspending of campaign funds.

Hunter allegedly used tens of thousands of dollars in campaign money for personal purposes including his children’s private school tuition and airline fees to travel with one of his children’s pet rabbit. Like the Armed Forces Foundation, Hunter’s campaign also spent money on jewelry, groceries and health care.


Driscoll’s friendly relationship with the younger Hunter is evident across social media over the years. In a video of a 2013 Ripon Society event at which they both spoke, Driscoll listed the younger Hunter among her “good friends” who have helped support the Armed Forces Foundation.

Driscoll listed the younger Hunter as a potential character witness in court records for a custody dispute in Howard County, Maryland, according to court records posted by the NASCAR sports website Kickin’ the Tires. The document said the younger Duncan Hunter had seen Driscoll interact with her son at various foundation events, and that Hunter and her son had been fishing together.

Hunter’s attorney did not respond to the Union-Tribune’s questions and request for comment.

Federal Election Commission records do not show contributions from Driscoll to the younger Duncan Hunter’s political campaigns, or those of his father. Records do show a $2,300 contribution to the younger Hunter’s campaign from Driscoll’s then-husband, Hermanstorfer, in June 2008. Hermanstorfer declined to be interviewed for this article.


Caldwell, the injured veteran for whom the foundation helped build a new, wheelchair-accessible house, said Driscoll’s contacts in the federal government seemed key to the charity’s success — and ability to help veterans like himself.

Caldwell said it seemed to him like Driscoll’s heart was in the right place and her intentions were pure. He said he was surprised and saddened to hear about the allegations against her, and he hoped she would be found innocent of the crimes for which she stands accused.

The foundation seemed to have lost its beating heart when Driscoll left, Caldwell said.

“It’s disappointing that no one else has the ability or desire to keep it going, no one else who would come forward to take the helm and keep it moving,” Caldwell said of the foundation. “That’s disappointing because it was a good foundation.”


morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com