A woman from Davenport was charged with over two dozen counts of embezzling over $100,000 from the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
On November 7, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Washington returned an indictment accusing Tawhnee Willow Colvin of transferring monies fraudulently from a bank account that included the per capita funding for foster children owned by the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
Colvin served as Assistant Director of the Spokane Tribe of Indians’ Department of Health and Human Services and Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) from September 2019 to October 2023, according to a press statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to the Attorney’s Office, Colvin’s position as assistant director gave her access to the DCFS bank account.
To guarantee that guardians fostering children would receive money for the children in their care, the DCFS bank account was kept up to date. The indictment claims that caretakers were paid in cash or by check drawn from the DCFS bank account.
Caregivers signed a receipt to confirm the payment was made when they accepted cash. The Spokane Tribe of Indians Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for keeping track of checks and cash receipts.
According to the accusation, Colvin transferred more than fifty dollars ($50,880) fraudulently from the DCFS bank account to her personal bank account between October 2019 and November 2023.
The indictment also claims that Colvin took out $49,950 in cash on at least 17 separate days between September 2019 and April 2021, for which DCFS lacks any records or receipts proving that any of the money was given to caretakers.
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“Individuals in positions of trust have an obligation to protect the funds they oversee. This is all the more important for resources dedicated to vulnerable members of our community, such as children in foster care,” United States Attorney Vanessa R. Waldref stated. “My office takes fraud seriously, and will continue to work with our federal, tribal, state, and local law enforcement to expose and prosecute public corruption, self-dealing, and fraud.”
United States Attorney Vanessa Waldref and Assistant United States Attorney Dan Fruchter are prosecuting this case, which was looked into by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
