N.J. coin can fundraiser fined

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2006:

ELIZABETH, N.J.–New Jersey Superior Court Judge Thomas
Lyons on June 14, 2006 barred Patrick G. Jemas of Woodbridge, New
Jersey, from fundraising within the state, fined him $330,804, and
ordered him to help the state Division of Consumer Affairs to locate
and remove hundreds of coin collection canisters that Jemas placed in
businesses throughout New Jersey in the name of the “National Animal
Welfare Foundation.”
Lyons did not have the authority to dissolve the National
Animal Welfare Foundation, or to stop Jemas’ reported fundraising
activities in New York and Pennsylvania.
New Jersey Attorney General Zulima V. Farber and Consumer
Affairs Director Kimberly Ricketts alleged that Jemas “collected
$70,795 in canister donations, but spent $75,891 on fundraising,
payroll, meals, automobiles, printing, and other undefined areas.
In only one fiscal year,” they said, “did reported donations exceed
reported expenses.”

Little if any trace of NAWF spending for animal welfare can
be discovered.
Jemas’ activities came to light in September 2002 though a
“phony organizations” alert issued by then-Associated Humane
Societies of New Jersey assistant director Rosanne Trezza. Jemas
formerly worked for the Associated Humane Societies.
Trezza in May 2003 was promoted to executive director of
Associated Humae, after the complicity of her predecessor in other
dubious coin-can fundraising schemes was flushed out by a state audit
and investigative reports by three different newspapers.
Coin canister fundraisers were believed to have bagged as
much as $5,000 a week, while giving Associated Humane only $1,000 to
$1,200 a week.