Candidate bounced from charity

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Mark DeStefano, Republican candidate for state treasurer, was asked to resign from the board of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth after he poached an employee to work for his own charity, according to Kathleen Boutin, the group's founder and director.

In an interview last week, DeStefano said Boutin had trained employee Ed Zimmerman to run DeStefano's charity. That charity, known as Future Stars of America, teaches financial literacy to at-risk teenagers.

Boutin, a longtime member of Southern Nevada's nonprofit community, says DeStefano's claim is untrue: "I trained Ed Zimmerman to work for the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. I never expected a board member to steal a key employee. After that happened, we asked for Mr. DeStefano's resignation. We've had no dealing with Future Stars of America since that time. That was in May 2005."

DeStefano's raid of Zimmerman was made worse because he wouldn't allow Zimmerman to give two weeks' notice, Boutin said.

DeStefano said in an interview that he left the board for his own reasons and of his own accord. Another member of the board confirmed Boutin's account, however, and said DeStefano was asked to leave.

The revelation that DeStefano was forced to resign from the board of the charity is the latest in a string of problematic events from DeStefano's past. He declared bankruptcy in 1989; in 1994 he sued the federal government, which he said unfairly ended his career as an air traffic controller by discriminating against him because of a "psychotic disorder"; in 2004 he was thrown off the ballot for university regent because he wasn't living in the district he was running in.

DeStefano also acknowledged in an interview that information on his charity's 2004 IRS Form 990 was incorrect. According to the filing, the charity spent $14,500 of its $25,860 in expenses on fundraising. DeStefano says the money actually went for consulting services.

Zimmerman largely confirmed Boutin's story about the hiring. He said DeStefano made him an excellent offer in late May 2005, and that DeStefano asked him to move quickly because the charity was in need of a director because of a contract it had won with the county.

Monday afternoon, Boutin forwarded a series of e-mails to the Sun that she says came from DeStefano over the weekend. They appear intended to influence her to speak well of DeStefano to a Sun reporter.

In one e-mail, DeStefano denies that he's asking her to lie for him: "I certainly did not ask you to lie for me, please do not confuse me asking you to say good things about my charity with lying."

In other e-mails, DeStefano is clearly frustrated and uses strong language. "Certainly this presents a great opportunity for you to screw me," he writes.

DeStefano is running against Democrat Kate Marshall.

Tim Pratt contributed to this report.