PHOENIX — Six years after financial irregularities first surfaced, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona’s (BFA) former president and legal counsel are on trial for fraud and theft.
The trial of former BFA President William Crotts and legal counsel Thomas Grabinski that began in late September may last through next March, according to news reports.
Crotts and Grabinski are charged with three counts of fraud, 27 counts of theft and two counts of illegally conducting an enterprise in connection with the foundation’s 1999 collapse. The BFA’s board of directors terminated their employment in August of that year, a month after the state’s corporation commission accused the foundation of violating the Arizona Securities Act.
Facing obligations of $590 million to nearly 13,000 investors, the foundation filed for bankruptcy in November 1999, the largest Chapter 11 filing by a nonprofit organization in U.S. history. Directors later formed a new corporation to sell off assets, repay debts and cease operations.
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