County attorney declines to file charges over fund shift at History Nebraska

LINCOLN  — The Lancaster County Attorney’s Office has declined to file criminal charges in connection with a diversion of $270,000 in funds by the then-head of History Nebraska, Trevor Jones.

The Nebraska state auditor had raised questions about the diversion of the funds, saying it could possibly represent official misconduct, theft or embezzlement.

The concerns were forwarded to the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office and ultimately to the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office for review.

But this week, County Attorney Pat Condon said his office will not be filing any criminal charges. He added, though, that state statutes regarding handling of donated funds should be reviewed to make such transfers less likely.

Pandemic threatened layoffs, cutbacks

In the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic first arrived in the state, History Nebraska reached out to the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation for financial help.

The foundation responded by issuing two checks, of about $270,000, to the agency to head off any layoffs or cutbacks in programs caused by an expected loss of revenue due to the pandemic.

But instead of using the money for personnel or programs and COVID relief, Jones, who resigned in July, opted to deposit the funds with a newly created History Nebraska Foundation.

The state auditor, in a report first published by the Nebraska Examiner, stated that funds donated to the state should be deposited with the state treasurer, not diverted to a private foundation. Not doing so, the August report stated, raised the possibility of several criminal offenses.

State time for private foundation

The audit report also raised concerns about some expenses Jones had charged to the History Nebraska Foundation and questioned whether he had utilized state resources and his state time to work on the private foundation.

But Condon said that the concern about the fund switch “doesn’t fit into the criminal statutes well” and that no prosecutions will be pursued.

A call and a text left with Jones on Wednesday afternoon were not immediately returned. He had told History Nebraska officials that he was moving to France upon his resignation.

Officials with History Nebraska and its board of trustees also did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Money should be used for intended purpose

State Historical Society Foundation officials said that the money ought to be used for its intended purpose — to bolster programs and operations — or else returned to the Foundation.

“The bottom line is still – we gave them money for Covid, and they made the money go someplace else,” said Gail DeBuse Potter, the president of the State Historical Society Foundation.

 The Historical Society Foundation, which has existed for eight decades, sent demand letters to History Nebraska in June and again in October asking the agency to “recover” its funds from the new foundation, which was formed in 2020.

Those demand letters did not elicit a response, Potter said.

‘Just put (money) in the right place’

Condon suggested that the foundation file a civil lawsuit to recover the funds. But Potter said the Historical Society Foundation first plans to ask the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office to compel that the funds be transferred.

“Just put (the money) in the right place,” Potter said. “Why should our foundation be funding their foundation?”

The new History Nebraska Foundation was formed amid a spat between History Nebraska and the older, more established Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation over the use of more than $1 million donated funds to create a farm exhibit. The old foundation maintains that History Nebraska’s plans did not conform with the wishes of the donor.

The State Auditor’s Office, in its report in August, questioned whether Jones, then the CEO and director of History Nebraska, had the authorization to deposit the checks provided by the older foundation into a bank account of the new foundation.

The auditor also questioned whether Jones, as a state employee, should have been managing and administering the financial affairs of the private History Nebraska Foundation for much of 2020 and 2021.

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