The former executive director of a north metro Denver nonprofit falsified documents so she could pocket nearly $100,000 in donations meant to fund her graduate school tuition, according to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
Lindsay Salas was leading in 2021 when a “top donor” offered to pay for her to go to graduate school, investigators wrote in the complaint.
CASAs are local organizations that coordinate community volunteers — known as court-appointed special advocates — who advocate for children in the legal system who have experienced abuse or neglect. The Adams and Broomfield CASA is one of 18 in
According to the attorney general’s office, Salas enrolled at the University of Denver to pursue her master’s degree in business administration in 2022 and, at some point in 2023, received a $5,000 scholarship from DU that was later sent to her directly because the donor had already paid for her tuition.
Salas initially tried to return the money to be used on a future CASA tuition invoice, but eventually spent it on herself, investigators said.
“Now aware that the University of Denver would refund any surplus in her student account to Defendant directly, Defendant began altering invoices that she submitted to CASA,” state officials wrote in the complaint.
Salas started submitting altered invoices for larger and larger amounts of money and then started creating and submitting fake invoices, each time pocketing the money when the nonprofit sent too much to DU and the university reimbursed it directly to Salas.
The total amount of money Salas took from the nonprofit by submitting altered and fake invoices was approximately $99,000, state officials said.
The attorney general’s office and Salas filed a settlement agreement in the case on Wednesday. She agreed to pay $66,000 back to the state over six years, which the state will return to CASA of Adams and Broomfield Counties.
Salas is also barred from serving in “certain financial or fundraising roles for charitable organizations” for five years.
The settlement resolves the civil claims against Salas but “does not rule out any other potential legal action,” state officials said.
An attorney for Salas did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
