Two leaders of a nonprofit fire safety organization in a rural Northern California community were arrested after prosecutors said they engaged in a pattern of illegal activity that included the “flagrant misuse of taxpayer funds for personal enrichment,” according to a news release from the Nevada County District Attorney's Office.
The executive director and director of field operations of the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County, a nonprofit focused on wildfire prevention and education in the county west of Lake Tahoe, face a series of felony charges after a years-long investigation into the nonprofit's finances. Prosecutors say the crimes resulted in the misuse of more than $100,000.
Jamie Jones and Christopher Wackerly, listed as the council's top executive and chief operating officer, respectively, were indicted last week by a grand jury on suspicion of embezzlement, grand theft, money laundering, mortgage fraud, insurance fraud, perjury and forgery. According to the Nevada County Union newspaper, Jones and Wackerly recently married. Both have been arrested and are in prison, according to the newspaper.
The Nevada County Fire Safety Council, as well as the state's umbrella organization, the California Fire Safety Council, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
“The evidence presented to the grand jury indicates flagrant misuse of taxpayer funds for personal enrichment and the use of organizational accounts as if they were personal accounts,” Nevada County District Attorney Jesse Wilson said in a statement.
Jones and Wackerly “engaged in significant misappropriation of taxpayer funds” over a six-year period, according to the news release.
“The funds were entrusted to the Nevada County Fire Safe Council for critical fire prevention and community safety purposes, as well as other publicly funded programs and services,” prosecutors said in the statement. They are also accused of misusing public benefits, submitting fraudulent documentation to government agencies, and engaging in financial transactions “to conceal the proceeds of criminal activities.”
Prosecutors said the charges followed an investigation that began in 2024 into allegations of embezzlement, but that the investigation “expanded significantly as investigators uncovered additional alleged criminal conduct, including complex financial activity involving multiple sources of public funding.”
It was not immediately clear whether they were linked, but the nonprofit had been the subject of at least two previous grand jury investigative reports related to the group's finances, in 2022 and 2024.
Following those reports, the Fire Safe Council issued a statement calling the findings “baseless and misleading.”
The council “and its board of directors have multiple levels of financial and management protocols based on sound, legal, transparent and professional practices,” the council said in a 2024 statement.
