Jason, Kristie, and their real estate business partner Dawid had been selling Visalus as a side income (Kristie since 2011, Jason since 2011, and Dawid since 2012). Now, Kristie and Dawid began selling Visalus through the PHCA. At this point, Kristie had already earned a status that earned her a $600 a month bonus toward the purchase of a black 7 series BMW. It was one of the perks of being a great salesperson. The PHCA received 5% of the sales. So, the process was simple. They would buy $5,000 worth of Visalus (Why $5,000? See this email from Visalus). Sell it on eBay for their cost plus free shipping and handling. Anyone who knows how eBay works knows that when you state free shipping and handling you still are paying for it, you just are not charging the customer. This was a tactic that somehow eluded the Wood County Prosecutor which you will learn later when you read about the trial. Upon the sale of $5,000, the PHCA would earn $250 (Jason reports this to the board on a per-bag basis where there are 125 bags sold per $5,000). However, depending on the tier, the commission made by the sellers from Visalus would exceed the shipping costs and the $250 to the PHCA for the sales. Jason would then write a check to the seller of the goods for whatever was owed. It was a great fundraiser with only one problem. Visalus only allowed a certain amount to be spent per month per payment method. In December of that year, Spencer (another PHCA employee) and Stephanie Serda signed up to sell Visalus with the intent that their earnings be donated to the PHCA to help pay their salaries. Stephanie began selling in January 2013. Jason kept all of the sales and shipping in order. The sales were around $200,000 from January until April with the community center receiving donations from sellers Jason, Stephanie, and Spencer.

Now for some additional evidence to back up the claims above.

In addition to the sign-up records of Jason, Kristie, and Dawid above, here are Stephanie’s and Spencer’s from Visalus.

Here is the record of all commissions paid from Visalus in Kristie’s and Jason’s group. It took about a month for Spencer and Stephanie to earn their first commission after signing up. Even if the prosecution claims that Visalus was being sold for the benefit of the community center, it is important to note that Kristie and Jason already had sales networks and commissions long before that was decided in January 2013. Additionally, the prosecution charged Jason with stealing ALL of the commissions reported from Visalus; even those from well before any of them were fundraising for the PHCA. They have also charged Jason with the theft of the commissions from others in this sales network that had NO AFFILIATION with the PHCA! A final thing to note is that these individuals selling Visalus had to pay taxes on this commission income because it was reported to the IRS. Because of this, Spencer and Stephanie as well as Kristie and Jason had to keep some of the money to account for the taxes they would have to pay on the income. Even Ashley Clifton was able to figure out that the highest possible profit from Visalus could have been around $54,000 which, as we discussed, doesn’t include all of the postage that was paid to ship the Visalus ($30,000+), but it also doesn’t include some of the Visalus purchases made either by Kristie and Jason nor the taxes held back). More below.

Kristie joined the board in April and she agreed to donate her proceeds that were generated by eBay. Remember that Kristie was a seller of Visalus since 2011, well before either joined the board. Dawid was still paying 5%. He had nothing to do with the PHCA and neither did the seven other sellers. Common sense (and a basic calculator) would show that between all of the eBay sales and commission donation, the PHCA would earn $10k-$15k over the four months. As you will see from the trial, Wood County prosecutors did not see it that way. With no records or testimony supporting their fairy tale, the prosecutor convinced a jury that the money Jason returned to the sellers to pay for their Visalus that was sold by the PHCA, was stolen money. Their theory was that the sellers intended to donate the money. We will show you actual testimony and affidavits from these sellers that they did not intend to donate $200,000 to the PHCA.

Stephanie Serda was on a one-year employment contract. During 2012-2013 the board credited Jason with the fundraising he did in order to keep the bills paid, but with no grants or reasonable income for the PHCA, Jason made a recommendation in 2013 that Stephanie’s contract not be renewed. We needed to become a fully volunteer organization. That did not sit well with Anita Serda (Stephanie’s mom). Within weeks a campaign of misinformation was spread about what really happened from that point forward.

The board agreed with Jason and voted to stop paying anyone. Anita and Stephanie then took steps to remove Jason from the board of directors in a public meeting that was said to be a “Support the PHCA” event. It was an attempt by a recruited group of friends and family to remove Jason from the board of directors through pressure from the crowd. An illegal vote was taken because it was not in an executive session and the board voted with a large majority to keep Jason. Jason then called an executive session for private issues and Anita Serda was removed from the board for what will remain private reasons according to PHCA policy. Over the next two weeks due to the behavior of the players, all of the remaining board members other than Stephanie Serda and one other prepared a group resignation. However, in an odd request, Stephanie Serda wanted the full board to sign an NDA. They all refused to agree with Jason stating that after reviewing all the records, there is no way the board was going to tolerate the abuse and accusations that were initiated by the Serda family. Not to mention, Jason found not-so-flattering records from when the board consisted of Anita Serda, Stephanie Serda, and Elisa Rodriguez. It became clear that the PHCA was being used for the benefit of many of the board members. After the response from Jason, Stephanie resigned. That is when Serda’s group recruited people to file complaints about how the remaining board was improperly operating the PHCA.