AG reaches settlement with company soliciting sheriff's donations

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October 19, 2009

By RONNIE ELLIS The Glasgow Daily Times Mon Oct 19, 2009, 03:43 PM CDT

FRANKFORT — Nearly everyone has received the phone call soliciting contributions for police and firefighters. A good cause, many think but is it legitimate?

That’s what Warren County Sheriff Jerry “Peanuts” Gaines wanted to know when on the same day three different people walked into his office and handed him $25 “for your bullet-proof vests.” Each person had been solicited on behalf of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department.

Problem was Warren County Sheriff Gaines didn’t know anything about it. So he called Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway whose office began investigating the professional solicitation firm Courtesy Call, Inc., which was making the calls on behalf of the Texas-based United States Deputy Sheriff’s Association.

On Monday, Conway and Gaines announced the companies have agreed to a voluntary assurance of compliance and will provide $100,000 which will be divided among the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association for equipment purchases and Conway’s office for the cost of the investigation.

Additionally, Courtesy Call personnel must now identify themselves as professional solicitors and follow scripts which have to be approved by the deputy sheriff’s association.

Conway said the professional solicitations netted about $2.7 million nationally over about 12 months and only about $10,000 of that ever made it to Kentucky and only about a quarter of sheriff’s departments in the state received any of that.. He said about 85 percent of the money raised went to Courtesy Call rather than the USDSA

Gaines was a bit more blunt.

“They’re a bunch of damn liars,” Gaines said. “That’s all they are.”

Todd Leatherman, who works in the Consumer Protection division of the AG’s office, said callers used “gross misrepresentations about this being for the benefit of local sheriffs’ offices when in fact it was going into a pot that was then distributed nationally.”

He said callers often told those they’d called in a community their gifts would benefit a local sheriff who they named, causing people to believe their contributions would go directly to the local sheriff’ department.

Conway’s office will get just under 30 percent of the $100,000 settlement to pay for the costs of the investigation. The $71,500 remaining will be used to purchase equipment for sheriff’s departments across Kentucky, all of which will be sent applications with which they can submit a request for needed equipment. Such eq1uipment as bullet-proof vests, digital cameras and radar guns will be purchased for those whose requests are approved.

Conway urged consumers who think they may have received solicitation calls from dubious groups to contact his office’s consumer protection division at 1-888-432-9257 or visit www.ag.ky.gov/civil/consumerprotecttion/charity to find out more information about the solicitor.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.

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