Critics Claim That Seeker of Missing Children Finds Contributions, Little Else

Before the start of a Padre baseball game last spring, Ward Leber and young Kristopher Siegel stood at the mound as the boy tossed out the first ball to commemorate Missing Kids Week.

Leber, executive director of the International Missing Children’s Foundation in La Jolla, wore a T-shirt proclaiming “We Care About Kids.” On the scoreboard and the public address system, the fans were reminded of organizations like Leber’s that help find children like Kristopher who have been missing.

Leber later distributed brochures for his agency highlighting Kristopher’s picture with the word “FOUND” stamped across it. He used the boy’s name and photographs from the game in press releases and fund-raising literature.

Although the publicity may have left the impression that Leber’s organization had a hand in finding Kristopher, Leber denies ever making that claim. But one woman remains upset about the organization’s use of Kristopher.

“I had never before heard of Ward Leber or his missing kids foundation,” said Janis Siegel, the boy’s mother, pointing out that Kristopher had been recovered by an Orange County foundation a full year before the San Diego ballgame.

“I was used.”

The first impression one gets of Ward Leber is that of a young man on the move, a shirt-sleeves entrepreneur trying to help those less fortunate.

Only 25, he runs the nonprofit organization whose purpose is finding missing kids and increasing the public’s awareness of a missing children’s crisis in this country.

Leber maintains that, since its inception three years ago, his foundation has helped find more than 100 children. He said the organization also provides educational programs, child identification

services, and legal and psychological counseling referrals for distraught parents.

To accomplish its goals, the foundation has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars through fund-raising events, telephone marketing and corporate donations.

In recent months, Leber and his organization have come under sharp criticism from a group of parents, former employees and small businessmen who say there is a gap between the publicity Leber generates and the actual accomplishments of the foundation.

In more than 40 interviews with The Times, they said Leber has made promises he didn’t keep, was involved in questionable fund-raising activities and used poor business practices.

Many parents of missing children said they have turned to the foundation for assistance but received little or no help. Some doubted that Leber personally has helped locate any children at all.

“I put false hope in that association,” said Jinger DeMent of Mira Mesa. “I got bamboozled.”

Former Employees Critical

Former employees of the organization said the foundation is more interested in raising money than in locating missing children.

“While I was out looking for kids,” said Phyllis Chamberlin, one former employee, “they wanted to sell T-shirts on the beach with their name and logo.”

Several small businessmen said they have provided services to the foundation and lent it money but that the loans have not been repaid, business deals have fallen through and relations have soured.

Leber, in two lengthy interviews at his foundation offices in La Jolla, sharply criticized the people making the allegations. He characterized them as a small group of disgruntled people, many of them former employees and searching parents who he said suffer from mental and emotional problems. He described several of the people making allegations as “abnormal” and “fruitcakes.”

He said his foundation is constantly working on new projects--fingerprinting kids, teaching safety tips to schoolchildren and producing educational videotapes.

He said he is working on an ambitious campaign to provide mail carriers with pictures of missing children in the hope of finding more kids. In February, he testified about missing and exploited children before a House subcommittee on Capitol Hill.

“The bottom line is to protect the missing child,” he said.

Jim Davies, a member of the foundation’s advisory board and the father of a child who was abducted and murdered, said, “I know Ward goes non-stop seven days a week, and I’ve never seen a more dedicated person.”

Support for Leber comes from other corners as well.

“He stands on his head to get funds to keep his organization running,” said Tom Pettinato, a La Jolla printer who said he has done work for the foundation. “He does the job.”

William Martin, another business associate who once shared office space with Leber, added: “The biggest challenge that he has is fund raising. All the disputes and complaints about the guy deal with money, but that’s the whole thing. More money should be spent on missing kids.”

Leber, a high-school graduate, said he earns only $2,000 a month as the foundation’s executive director. He said he works 15- and 17-hour days and on weekends.

After two interviews, Leber sent The Times many telegrams, press releases, fund-raising bulletins and boxes of videotapes--all which he said were evidence of services provided by his foundation. Most of the material showed that the foundation has been actively raising funds and sponsoring child-safety programs, but not actually locating missing children.

Raised $375,000 in ’86

In his tax filings with the state, Leber reported that in 1986 the foundation received a total of $375,000 in public support, mostly from individual contributions and corporate donations. He estimated that the foundation raised a similar amount in 1987.

Leber said less than a third of his foundation’s funds goes for finding missing children and other services, while more than two-thirds goes for administrative costs and fund raising.

Leber declined to provide a detailed financial accounting of how the foundation had spent money on services. At first he said his books were with an accountant, then he said he couldn’t find his books because he was moving from his offices in La Jolla to offices downtown.

Other missing children’s organizations with larger budgets and with national reputations said they spend much lower percentages on administration and fund raising.

Susan Davidson, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Adam Walsh Foundation, said her Orange County group spends 4.7% of its funds on administrative overhead, the rest for client services. She said her organization helped locate 104 children last year alone, now has 200 open cases and has responded to almost 14,000 calls since the office opened in 1984.

Marcia Acita, development coordinator for programs and fund raising for Child Find of America, said that, of its $800,000 budget, more than 80% goes to services, the rest for administration and fund raising.

She said her group, based in New York, has about 500 open cases at any given time and has helped locate more than 1,800 children since it was founded in 1980.

By comparison, organizations must spend more than 75% of their funds on services to qualify for certification by the United Way of San Diego County, said Jenny Carmichael, vice president for United Way allocations and agency relations. She said the average United Way agency actually spends about 85% on services.

Leber said his organization is spending less on services now because it is still fairly new. He added that he hopes to be able to put more money into programs in coming years.

Larry Campbell, registrar of the state attorney general’s charitable trusts office in Sacramento, said there are no laws regulating how much in services must be provided by a nonprofit group to justify its tax-exempt status.

“Even if the service is below standard and unsatisfactory, law enforcement cannot be the judge of the quality of the programs or services,” Campbell said.

Leber assumed control of the International Missing Children’s Foundation in 1985, shortly after it had been started with $70,000 in “seed money” provided by a retired Fallbrook couple active in Christian television programming.

Leber said he met Charles Spencer and his wife, Margaret, when they were starting the foundation. Before that, Leber said, he had been a professional racquetball player and “done a lot of work for various child-abuse organizations,” though he declined to provide references or the names of those organizations.

Margaret Spencer said she and her husband met Leber when he was working in videotape productions and was among a group of young men who volunteered their services to the new foundation.

She said she and her husband turned the organization over to Leber for two reasons: They were growing older and were unable to run the daily operations; and Leber, as one of several young volunteers, seemed to be eager to see the foundation prosper.

“We don’t see Ward hardly at all now,” she said. “But, in the past, he did work very hard. He was single and young and had a lot of energy.”

Critics of the organization say contributors believe that their donations are actually being used to find children, although the foundation isn’t doing much of that.

From 85% to 90% of missing children are taken in parental custody disputes, according to national statistics, and Leber said much of the foundation’s work has been in tracking down estranged spouses who abscond with the couple’s children.

Leber said that he personally has worked on many of more than 100 child recoveries, that the foundation accepts five new cases each week and that it successfully helps locate children in more than half of its cases.

But Leber declined to provide the names of parents of any of the missing children he claimed to have located, citing confidentiality. He promised to have some parents telephone The Times, but no parents called.

Six mothers of missing children told The Times that the foundation either did nothing to help them, or that Janis Siegel, who worked last fall at the foundation, helped find their children without Leber’s help.

Siegel has had experience in locating lost children. Her son, Kristopher, was abducted by a baby sitter from his Orange County home when he was 2 years old. Missing for almost seven years, he was located in Maine and reunited with his mother in 1986.

She said she allowed her son to join Leber at the Padre game because she hoped the boy’s appearance would spread the message to the public that child recoveries do happen. But she said she was amazed that Leber continued to use her son’s name in his promotional materials.

Disagreement Over Finances

She said Leber promised to, but never did, put away $500 a month for her son’s education in return for using his name and picture.

Leber denied that he intentionally tried to deceive the public about finding Kristopher. He said that Siegel had given permission to use the boy’s name and photo. He said he didn’t know about any promises to give the boy money.

Once on the job, Siegel said, she realized that the foundation had few resources for finding children.

She said Leber was preoccupied with finding money, not missing children. She said Leber was seldom in the office and, when he was present, showed no real interest in her efforts.

“It was all a joke with him,” she said. “Ward would ask me, laughing, ‘How many kids have you found today? Can you find two by noon?’ ”

Leber disagreed, saying that he supported Siegel’s child-recovery efforts. “We cheered her on every time,” he said.

After helping reunite about 20 parents and children, Siegel said, she resigned in December because her paychecks were often late. After she resigned, she said, the organization did not pay her until after a prolonged dispute with Leber.

Leber said he was late in paying Siegel because she refused to return to the office to pick up her money. He also said Siegel was an unreliable employee, missed countless days from work and refused to give him written reports.

Siegel said she worked hard and was the only person in the organization actually finding kids.

Jinger DeMent said she and her husband turned to Leber after his three daughters were taken to a South Dakota Indian reservation. She said Leber promised them raffle money to make the trip, twice promised them prepaid airplane tickets and even told them a private donor would give them $500 to defray their costs.

None was provided, she said.

Leber said the DeMent name “rings a bell.” He added, “If I told them we would underwrite the plane fare, we probably did.”

Couldn’t Recall Names

In several cases, Leber didn’t recall the names of parents who said they had appealed for his help.

Joan Taschner of Escondido, searching for her missing granddaughter, said she repeatedly called the foundation but Leber never called back. Finally, she said, he referred her to a secretary who took down some basic information, but there was no follow-up.

Leber said, “I don’t really recall the incident.”

Virginia Smith’s 3-year-old son, A.J., was taken from her El Cajon home, and was located with Siegel’s help.

Smith said Leber promised to pay her $300 in expenses but failed to come through. And she said she only met Leber after her son was recovered and he wanted to claim credit at a press conference for personally finding the boy.

Leber said Siegel should have handled individual details. “If Janis did not follow through with a particular amount of money, it’s surprising to me,” he said.

Connie Hampton of Imperial Beach said she visited the foundation more than 10 times, hoping to enlist help in finding her 7-year-old son.

But she said Leber was seldom there and, when he was, showed no interest.

Leber did not recall the details of the Hampton case. He said he is a busy man and, “I can’t be everywhere at once.”

Katie Rucinski, who was Leber’s secretary before Siegel was hired, saw it differently during her 3 1/2 months at the foundation.

“Parents called and called,” Rucinski said. “I didn’t know what to do, what to tell these mothers. I felt so helpless, so mad.

“I tried to comfort the mothers. One was so upset and said her daughter was gone. What could I tell her? Others called and said they thought somebody was missing. Or they knew of a child that was missing.

“I wrote them all in a note pad. I put them in Ward’s mail slot. When he came in, he picked up the messages. And that was the end of it.”

Leber said Rucinski worked only a short time at the foundation. “I don’t know what information she could possibly have on missing children’s cases,” he said.

Rucinski said she left the foundation in June, when she was upset about not being paid on time.

Many of Leber’s critics say Leber made financial commitments he didn’t keep.

Three lawsuits have been filed against the foundation: by a telemarketing company seeking to recover $58,000 for fund-raising work in the San Fernando Valley; by the owner of a Kearny Mesa carpet company seeking to recover a $20,000 loan to the foundation; and by a San Diego company asking for $1,700 for clerical services it says it provided the foundation.

Ten other people have told The Times of similar problems.

Katherine A. L’Hommedieu, marketing director for the American Thrift & Loan in San Diego, said her institution gave the foundation $5,000 to sponsor a jazz concert. After plans for the concert fell through in September, L’Hommedieu said, she had to persistently bother the foundation for repayment.

The last installment was refunded, she said, shortly after L’Hommedieu was interviewed by The Times.

Leber acknowledged that he was late in refunding the money. “We’d already gone out and spent the money,” he said.

Judy Rose, a San Diego fund-raiser, said she lost about $800 in producing an art auction in which the foundation was to share the proceeds. But, when the auction actually lost money, the foundation refused to help cover the losses, she said.

Leber said another official with his foundation signed an agreement to help cover the losses without his approval, and that therefore he did not believe the foundation was liable.

More Accusations

Other allegations against Leber dealing with money have been taken to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington.

These complaints dealt with a phone-solicitation project late last year in which people were called at home around the nation and told they could win new cars or jewelry if they made large donations to Leber’s foundation. Several state attorneys general warned the solicitors that such inducements are prohibited in their states.

Marsha Gilmer, director of nonprofit relations for the national center, said her agency received eight complaints within several hours one day in November, one of which she described:

“There was a little elderly lady in Iowa who gave her credit card number (over the phone) and wanted to win a car for her son who was out of a job. She got a bag of emerald chips and then was trying to get her $300 back that she had already authorized. But she found out that her $300 had been collected by the foundation within an hour of when she gave them her card number.”

The telemarketing effort raised about $300,000, about a third of which the foundation received.

Leber said he believes his foundation was victimized by the telemarketing company, the Colonial Corp. in Culver City, because it used a “sales pitch” of which he did not approve. He said he is now refunding the money to contributors.

“We’ve frozen the money,” he said. “We’ve refunded almost everything.”

However, Avery Einhorn, attorney for Colonial, said Leber was “at all times aware of the sales presentation.”

And Einhorn said the real problems began when Colonial realized Leber did not properly register with about three dozen states where the solicitations occurred, as he had promised.

Furthermore, Einhorn said, Leber withdrew about a third of the money from the joint account when he claimed he needed it to cover his administrative and overhead costs. And he said it was doubtful that Leber was refunding that money to donors because Colonial never gave him a list of the contributors.

“I don’t know of any way he would know how to send any money back to anybody,” he said.