Tucson woman accused of gambling away $5M in embezzled funds

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Tucson woman accused of gambling away $5M in embezzled funds | Crime and courts | tucson.com

Tucson bookkeeper has been indicted for allegedly embezzling $5.3M from two local construction companies and from an HOA in Mexico.


Helen Marie Dahlstrom is accused of gambling away the stolen money at Tucson-area casinos.

She was a longtime employee of Lauderbach Builders Supply and L&L Manufactured Components and served as the treasurer for her Rocky Point, Sonora, Mexico-based homeowners’ association Asociacion De Regularizacion De Vecinos De La Cholla (Cholla Bay HOA), according to a news release from the Arizona Attorney General's Office.

The embezzlement of over $5 million is said to have occurred between September 2013 and July 2020 by writing checks made out to cash, the indictment says.
Dahlstrom is charged with multiple counts of fraudulent schemes and artifices, theft, computer tampering, forgery and money laundering.

Helen Marie Dahlstrom
Helen Marie Dahlstrom
Courtesy Arizona Attorney General's Office
 
brokenwave

brokenwave

Guest
That thief, took $170K from the Cholla Bay HOA, and in the process has divided the Cholla community where
it's sometimes hard to even have a conversation with your neighbors.
This is because there are those who still support
the HOA, those who want to dismantle it and start over and many just don't care about the Cholla community.

The Cholla HOA is currently collecting the $150 HOA fee from less than 50% of the homeowners and $$ for the
community services the HOA pays for will run out during the next 2 years and services will be cut.

The Cholla HOA is not like most HOA's where your home will have a lien on it for non payment. It's more
of a club that pay's for the services that Cholla Bay uses and many people will not pay for the services provided.

I am a Cholla homeowner and am not thrilled with any of this, but still pay my dues, because I use the services provided.
 
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Porta56

Guest
$150 a year. I am still paying because there are a lot of things the new folks take for granted. If she hadn’t taken all that money, we would probably be on the way to having water piped to our homes. It is not much money, yet if everyone pitched in, a lot of good benefits could be realized. I’ve been going to Cholla since 81, and appreciate the improvements.
 
brokenwave

brokenwave

Guest
Old55 said:
150 a month? Water , security includes? She must be a terrible gambler!
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That's $150 per year, from that the HOA pays for Police patrols, road maintenance, Up-keep of the Cholla park and club house.
Porta Potties for some of the beach areas and access to the water pipe for the water trucks to fill from to deliver water to the Cholla homes.
Probably a few other services I didn't list. We sure wish the HOA wasn't run by a group of friends who left access to the funds
without any/much supervision for the thief to steal.
 
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Idyllwild

Guest
brokenwave said:
That's $150 per year, from that the HOA pays for Police patrols, road maintenance, Up-keep of the Cholla park and club house.
Porta Potties for some of the beach areas and access to the water pipe for the water trucks to fill from to deliver water to the Cholla homes.
Probably a few other services I didn't list. We sure wish the HOA wasn't run by a group of friends who left access to the funds
without any/much supervision for the thief to steal.
Click to expand...
Does she own property in Mexico that could potentially be seized? Was there any officers and directors insurance? Are the same individuals still running the HOA?
 
brokenwave

brokenwave

Guest
Idyllwild said:
Does she own property in Mexico that could potentially be seized? Was there any officers and directors insurance? Are the same individuals still running the HOA?
Click to expand...
She and her hubby own a home in Cholla, I don't know if the HOA can take it. I doubt there was insurance.
The president and a few other officers are still the same.

In late April there is an election to possibly replace the president and another position.
We'll see if some fresh people can get this right. It's a cluster now, with a faction of about 125 people
who want to disband the current HOA and start fresh, but I question the motives of some of these new people
because there's $100K left in the HOA funds.
$$ does crazy things to people.
 
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Idyllwild

Guest
brokenwave said:
She and her hubby own a home in Cholla, I don't know if the HOA can take it. I doubt there was insurance.
The president and a few other officers are still the same.

In late April there is an election to possibly replace the president and another position.
We'll see if some fresh people can get this right. It's a cluster now, with a faction of about 125 people
who want to disband the current HOA and start fresh, but I question the motives of some of these new people
because there's $100K left in the HOA funds.
$$ does crazy things to people.
Click to expand...
Based on the advertised sale prices of beachfront properties in Cholla $100 K is chicken feed, and so is the $170 K that stolen. When we were looking I went inside 8 or 10 homes with sale prices above $400 K. There is easily $50 M in property values in the HOA, and probably more. Homeowners with equity in Cholla need to take control of the Board, sue the indicted former Treasurer in the US and/or Mexico, determine whether an insurance tender is possible, and exercise a fiduciary responsibility for the benefit of owners. The risks you outlined easily translate into a 10% loss in property resale values. That’s $5M in depreciation, and probably more. Everyone with a home worth over $250K should get in line with a check for up to $10K right away to make the HOA solvent. This needs to be fixed urgently. Maybe business owners want to get involved too. Loosing access to water would not be good for anyone.


edited to add: The total property value in Cholla is probably closer to $150 M.
 
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brokenwave

brokenwave

Guest
That $360K number has been reported possibly incorrectly. Since the HOA in Cholla doesn't have the typical CCR's or any
as real HOA's, The homeowners are probably not in a position to sue the officers.

Cholla is a different animal, you would be surprised at how many people living in $200k-$1 million homes won't pay
their property taxes, pay for garbage pick-up, pay the $150 annual dues for the HOA before the theft, because it's so easy not to pay.
The HOA can't put a lien on a home for not paying the HOA dues.
So people lining up to pay $10 much less $10K, will probably never happen.
So to sum it up, the Cholla HOA isn't a real HOA more of a community club to pay for needed services.

The theft was a wake-up call and now the people running the HOA are doing things like they should have been before.
Sadly it's too late because many don't trust anything associated with the current regime, too much hate
and now we have a very divided community.
 
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Idyllwild

Guest
A number of media outlets are quoting the indictment that the amount taken from the HOA was $360 K. Google Helen Marie Dahlstrom and select news stories.
 
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Bob Oso

Guest
Idyllwild, you seem to be a well studied individual, and always nice to hear possible solutions rather than the relentless complaints of the obvious. But brokenwave has really got it spelled out pretty clearly. The non-payment of services that he is referring to are correct, and the transition from a community club to a HOA is all to real. But much of that distain can be contributed to property and deed transfers that dogged this community for too long. Homeowner were not about to dump more money into these services when the basic ownership rights still fluttered in the wind. I lived it, it took us over 13 years to get this done on a 200 sq./ft. shack we needed for parking. And don't get me started on the property line issue.

No doubt the theft was a wake up call for the HOA, but you've still have to consider that she also stole from two US based corporations that one would think to have better safeguards against employee embezzlement by way of paid administrators, and paid CPA's. Not sure what the board of the Cholla Bay HOA gets paid, but I'm guessing it doesn't match that of the other companies she stole from. And like b-wave said, the only thing flourishing in Cholla now is animosity.
 
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Idyllwild

Guest
Bob Oso said:
Idyllwild, you seem to be a well studied individual, and always nice to hear possible solutions rather than the relentless complaints of the obvious. But brokenwave has really got it spelled out pretty clearly. The non-payment of services that he is referring to are correct, and the transition from a community club to a HOA is all to real. But much of that distain can be contributed to property and deed transfers that dogged this community for too long. Homeowner were not about to dump more money into these services when the basic ownership rights still fluttered in the wind. I lived it, it took us over 13 years to get this done on a 200 sq./ft. shack we needed for parking. And don't get me started on the property line issue.

No doubt the theft was a wake up call for the HOA, but you've still have to consider that she also stole from two US based corporations that one would think to have better safeguards against employee embezzlement by way of paid administrators, and paid CPA's. Not sure what the board of the Cholla Bay HOA gets paid, but I'm guessing it doesn't match that of the other companies she stole from. And like b-wave said, the only thing flourishing in Cholla now is animosity.
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Presumably the HOA Board was paid exactly zero, the same as US HOA Boards. By the way, I was President of two CA HOA Boards, one with 270 homes that had average valuations of a million dollars fifteen years ago — twice that now, as well as high profile litigation issues. The essential duty of a Board Officer is his or her fiduciary responsibility to protect the property value and safety of the members.

The choice the Cholla HOA faces is clear: either dwell on past injustices and suffer the consequences of infighting and deteriorating shared resources, or put the past aside and move forward. At some point nearly all of you will want to sell your properties, and for those who don’t, your heirs will sell them after probate. The litany of lost resources, access to water, police security, park space, sanitation at beaches, attested to in this thread, is certain to adversely affect resale values. This couldn’t happen to you at a worse time, with newer developments springing up all over town. Las Conches took a hit over their association dysfunction and consequent loss of the security gate. People don’t like to buy into communities that are engaged in internal strife.

So, the bottom line is if you like fighting and failure, knock yourselves out. It will only help property values elsewhere. There are always going to be free riders, and even when I looked closely at Cholla only 70% were paying HOA dues. But if 100 homeowners wanted to protect their investments from $20 K to $50 K loss of value each, and they could do it by each contributing $5 K, it would be a no brainer. This is economics, not high school. Mailing the house keys to the bank isn’t an option. So stand up and fix your problems, or not.
 
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Bob Oso

Guest
I think you're a little over your ski's in you assessment of Cholla Bay. It wouldn't be so bad if you weren't so contemptuous with your off the cuff analysis.
 
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Idyllwild

Guest
Bob Oso said:
I think you're a little over your ski's in you assessment of Cholla Bay. It wouldn't be so bad if you weren't so contemptuous with your off the cuff analysis.
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Bob:

Anyone considering a real estate purchase is going to make “an off the cuff analysis” before buying. Mine is probably better than most as I’ve bought and sold more homes than most, and I seriously considered Cholla Bay, which I still fell has a unique southern Mediterranean vibe. I just read your most recent 3 or 4 HOA newsletters which are up on your website. I’ve never seen anything like this before, with personal attacks coming from the board, and implied allegations of improprieties. I’m usually not on Facebook, but there is some pretty tough stuff on your community page. It is indeed as bad as Brokenwave said above. Actually worse.

It could indeed be impossible for your community to move forward with the current association, or at least some of the present board members. But I’m going to double down on my essential analysis. A large group of invested homeowners need to raise some funds and provide essential services to ensure a functioning community and protect resale values. I’m sure most of you hoped your purchase in Cholla would be an investment, and you need to act decisively to protect that investment.

Best of luck to you. (And by the way I last skied on Friday, in Snowbowl, and I don’t get over my skis).
 
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