The former executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Southwest Colorado has been arrested on suspicion of third-degree felony theft.
Durango police say Rebekah DeLaMare, who worked for the homebuilders group from 2019 to 2022, made $186,000 in fraudulent purchases out of the nonprofit’s bank account.
DeLaMare, after a preliminary hearing before La Plata County Judge Reid Stewart on Monday, said the charges in question were for business expenses approved by the board of directors.
Turmoil at the organization in late 2022, which stemmed in part from DeLaMare’s departure and turnover on the board of directors, led to the cancellation of the annual Parade of Homes in 2023.
An arrest affidavit filed last month details charges to the organization’s accounts that were, board member Brooke Guardiola said, “obviously unauthorized.” Those charges included expenses at restaurants, Amazon and airlines.
DeLaMare and board members tell drastically different versions of the story.
The alleged crimes left the small nonprofit financially devastated, said Adam Hirshberg, a sitting board member who served as board president beginning around the time of DeLaMare’s resignation in November 2022.
“When it all came around to it, we had no money left,” he said.
DeLaMare describes being thrust in a position for which she was “grossly underqualified.”
She said airlines tickets purchased with company accounts were for executive officers to attend events held by the trade group’s national parent organization.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said.
She also said the investigator, Durango Police Officer Alex Robinson, did not sufficiently examine some of the charges or contact her for information.
“There’s very little effort being made to actually research some of the people’s names that have come up that are in question, especially surrounding transactions,” DeLaMare said. “Like any of the temporary employees or help that had been hired on, especially with board approval to do certain jobs, throughout the years.”
In his arrest affidavit, Robinson said he tried calling two numbers to contact DeLaMare. One belonged to someone else, he wrote, and a second was answered by a female who hung up on him and blocked him.
But DeLaMare said she has not used the second number Robinson called in over a decade, and has screenshots demonstrating that she never received a call from the officer.
The total sum of the alleged theft, $186,000, looms over the organization’s relatively small operating revenues, which reached just over $172,000 in 2021, according to the organization’s tax filings for that year. The bulk of the nonprofit’s revenue comes from membership dues and fundraisers.
“We’ve kept the organization going through volunteer efforts of folks in our building community,” Hirshberg said, expressing gratitude for Home Builders Association’s volunteers.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
