Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Tim Berry, a 35-year-old man from Williamsville that was a member of the online group Erie County Blotter, is accused of stealing more than $5,000 in donations for victims of Hurricane Helene.
According to the Erie County District Attorney's Office, members of the group contacted authorities to report Berry's activities. The theft was alleged to have happened between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4 of 2024. Berry spoke to WBEN on a couple of occasions, as he was getting ready to depart for Kingsport, Tenn.
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Shawn McMahon, one of the founding members of Erie County Blotter, says efforts to bring relief and supplies for the people of Tennessee and North Carolina began shortly after Helene had caused devastating flooding in that part of the country.
"Amazingly, hundreds of people, literally all over from Western New York, Rochester Jamestown, all came to Tim's house, that we designated as a drop point. Tim drives big trucks, and we needed the big trucks to get them down to our destination down South. Through that, we kept collecting monetary donations, and planned a bigger second one, which we did. That's when the news coverage was pretty much all over the story of us doing this fundraising," said McMahon while speaking with WBEN on Wednesday. "We had hundreds of people show up. We had so many people that willingly volunteered, that we did not even know, to go down and help us deliver these items, help reach people up in the mountains, help with search and recovery missions. These are nurses, firefighters, the general public. We accepted these people in, a lot of them became family, they still our family."
However, it was through these efforts that McMahon and others with the group learned that things weren't adding up.
"There was money that we promised to give to victims that weren't given. There were receipts that were missing, everything didn't add up and make sense. So we made the ultimate decision to get in touch with the Sheriff's Office, which put this whole investigation in process," McMahon detailed.
McMahon posted a message to Erie County Blotter's Facebook page Tuesday night, apologizing for not being transparent about "staffing changes", and that they are cooperating with authorities. The group promised that "funding will be restored to its intended purpose."
"Where and why money went missing, that is part of the investigation, but that was a whole reason why we had to do a reset of the Erie County Blotter. I cannot have any thieving going on with what we do, because our mission is to help people. If we're stealing items from people we're supposed to be helping, then all of us should be in jail. That's not how anybody should be running an operation, especially during the devastation that we've seen down South," McMahon explained.
McMahon is saddened and disappointed at what happened, and vows to continue to make sure the group will check on anything and everything that comes in and is going out, as they still continue to collect donations.
"We are simply doing the leg work, pretty much, being guided by the man above, and we gratefully appreciate people still trusting in us to do these missions. But going forward, we're just going to keep going on like we have been, and leave, hopefully, this incident behind, or leaving it with the detectives and the DA's Office," McMahon said. "And our mission down South is not over. There's still people down there sleeping in tents, and we just don't know where to go from here to help them right now, because we can't transport the items they need legally without permits."
Berry allegedly transferred donated funds from a PayPal account to his personal bank account. The District Attorney's Office says the money was eventually used for Berry's personal expenses.
All McMahon is hoping for is the courts to recoup the money that was taken, which he says is much more than the $5,000 figure released by the District Attorney's Office.
"We're just hoping that that money can be recovered, and given to these people that we promised down in North Carolina and Tennessee," he said. "Let me tell you, I worry a lot right now about the people on the West Coast, because after seeing what we've seen down South, I know what they're dealing with. It's like a war zone. The things that we see, the general public should not see. And we went down there willingly to do everything we possibly can, and we're still trying. We're hoping for another mission in March, but our overall hopes are that this money can be recovered."
Berry faces a maximum of seven years in prison. He's due back in court on Feb. 26 for a felony hearing.
