Scouting Council, Parents Clash Over Van Ownership

Call it The Case of the Vanishing Van.

Hawthorne police detectives have been looking for a blue and white Dodge van, donated in 1987 to the Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scout officials say the van belongs to the organization’s Los Angeles Area Council and that it was illegally taken over by a former community director.

But a committee of Lennox and Inglewood parents who have kept the van in hiding for the last several weeks say the vehicle was donated to them and that the director, Frank Madrid, registered the vehicle in his name with their permission. Madrid, who was fired by the council in January, vehemently denies any wrongdoing.

The parents’ group, made up of about 20 members, contends that the council has known all along that the committee has had the van.

“We don’t think it’s just” that the council should claim ownership of the van after four years, committee member Josefina Ruelas said. “It’s ours, and all these years we’ve been the ones paying to repair and maintain it, not the council.”

For the last month, Hawthorne police have been investigating an embezzlement complaint filed against Madrid by the Los Angeles Council, and the parents have taken to hiding the van to keep it from being impounded.

Hawthorne Police Detective Tom Jester said Thursday that he has concluded his investigation and that it appears unlikely criminal charges will be filed. Although the case will be forwarded to the city attorney’s office for review, Jester said, “We could not prove intent on defrauding” the council.

However, Jester said, that still leaves unresolved the question of who really owns the van.

According to Jester, Boy Scout officials provided the police with documents stating that Northrop Corp. donated the van to the Los Angeles Council.

Northrop officials have been unable to confirm whether the van was donated to the council or to the committee. The employee who negotiated the donation has since died, a company spokesman said, and efforts to locate records that might answer the question have so far been futile.

But Madrid says he negotiated the donation with Northrop officials and then notified Los Angeles Council executives, who told him that they wanted no responsibility for the van.

The working-class parents who constitute the committee say the van, donated by one of Northrop Corp.’s Hawthorne divisions, has been an invaluable resource. The group has used the van to transport youths to camp-outs, amusement parks and Boy Scout banquets.

But after Madrid was fired as director of an after-school Scouting program, Boy Scout officials in Los Angeles sought to obtain the vehicle.

Richard Dieffenbach, an attorney for the council, said the organization never authorized the transfer of title to the van to Madrid.

“The van was donated to the Boy Scouts of America and never got to the Boy Scouts of America,” Dieffenbach said. “This man procured property without authorization. We were taken advantage of by this man. We are trying to preserve property donated to the Boy Scouts; that’s all we want in this.”

Ruelas, a onetime paid project worker in the after-school Scout program that Madrid administered, said she was outraged by the council’s accusations that Madrid misappropriated the vehicle.

Pabla Rocha, a former Scoutmaster and also a paid Scout employee at one time, said the committee instructed Madrid to register the vehicle in his name after he informed the group that the Department of Motor Vehicles would not register the van in the committee’s name.

“He did everything with the committee’s consent,” Rocha said.

Madrid says the committee is not incorporated as a nonprofit organization and that a DMV official told him the van could not be registered in its name. However, a spokeswoman for the DMV said Thursday that this should not have prevented registering the van in the committee’s name.

Madrid says the investigation is intended to harass and intimidate him because he blew the whistle on the Los Angeles Council for maintaining “phantom” troops on its membership rolls.

After a local audit confirmed Madrid’s allegation of membership irregularities in the after-school program, the council requested an audit by the Boy Scouts’ national headquarters, which found three weeks ago that the council had been claiming 1,800 members in 45 nonexistent troops.

Dieffenbach said Madrid’s allegations concerning retribution are “absolutely untrue.”

Madrid has said he was fired because of his membership allegations and his complaints that the Scouts discriminate against Latino children. Scout officials say he was fired for unsatisfactory job performance, including insubordination and inadequate supervision of Scouts.

After Madrid was fired, parents staged a number of protests, and a committee-led boycott effectively shut down most Scouting programs in Lennox and Inglewood.

Madrid said he first became aware of the council’s embezzlement complaint three weeks ago, when Hawthorne detectives came to his home in Norwalk. He did not have the van but showed the investigators registration papers for the vehicle.

“This is stupid,” Madrid said. “It’s not my van. It’s the committee’s, and they said they are not going to give it up to the council.”

Rocha said the committee would continue to hide the van until the issue of its ownership is resolved. The van is moved every couple of days, she said, and members keep a watchful eye over it.