January 29, 2015-  The Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office today filed additional charges of Dealing in Proceeds of Unlawful Activities and Theft by Unlawful Taking against John R. Campbell, of Harrisburg, for crimes committed between April 2013 and May 2014 while serving as the Executive Director of the Historic Harrisburg Association (HHA), a not-for-profit philanthropy organization in Harrisburg.

The charges stem from an investigation initiated by the District Attorney’s Office and the Pennsylvania Department of State’s Bureau of Charitable Organizations in August of 2014.  At that time, Historic Harrisburg reported various concerns over accounting irregularities from the period that Campbell served as their Executive Director.

Investigators determined that Campbell had made 19 electronic unauthorized money transfers from accounts owned by HHA to his personal accounts, totaling approximately $11,841.22.  Of those transactions, 13 were made where Campbell transferred cash advances from HHA’s credit card into HHA’s PayPal electronic bank account, where it was then transferred into Campbell’s personal PayPal, and then transferred into Campbell’s personal banking account for his own use. The remaining six (6) transactions involved direct payments from HHA’s credit card into Campbell’s personal bank account.  Records revealed that the cash proceeds of the above mentioned transactions were used by Campbell for his own personal living expenses, and were unauthorized by the HHA.

The criminal complaint charges that Campbell opened a VISA credit card in the name of Historic Harrisburg, used that card to make personal unauthorized purchases for vacation and entertainment expenses, totaling $11,988.19.
 
On August 26th, 2014, the District Attorney’s Office charged Campbell with theft related offenses for various unauthorized checks that he wrote to himself, totaling approximately $8,781.01.  On September 11, 2014, additional charges were brought for the theft of $2,750.00 from the Capitol Region Stonewall Democrats, a political action committee for which Campbell served as treasurer until early September 2014.

The new allegations of theft committed by Campbell against Historic Harrisburg total $23,829.41, bringing the aggregate total of all alleged thefts- including those previously filed- to around $35,360.42.

These charges are just allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until convicted.