Lutheran Social Services of Nevada is selling its office connected Boulder Highway to different nonprofit, according to Clark County, which a decennary agone gave millions of dollars successful payer funds toward the building’s construction.
The Clark County territory attorney’s office, meanwhile, has demanded that the enactment repay astir $39,000 for services that were not performed nether a region contract, according to a missive provided by the county.
“This is conscionable specified a bid wreck,” said the Rev. Marta Poling Schmitt, a retired Lutheran pastor who arsenic a committee subordinate of the nonprofit and a donor helped to unfastened the office successful 2018.
After an eight-year absence, she returned to the committee successful May 2025 earlier resigning when, she said, the nonprofit’s main executives refused to resign themselves.
“They’ve got to get retired of there,” Schmitt said astir the remaining leadership. “There has to beryllium a caller past made there.”
The request is large for services successful the impoverished Boulder Highway corridor, she said. The enactment had been offering blistery meals for seniors, a nutrient pantry wherever clients regularly could get groceries, and different services specified arsenic lodging assistance.
Lutheran Social Services — lone loosely affiliated with the Lutheran Church, which has mostly chopped ties — has struggled financially successful caller years and seen its estimation marred by controversy, including claims of mismanagement that came to airy aft it suspended operations successful October.
Several committee members and cardinal employees discontinue successful September 2024 aft learning, they said, of monthly $8,500 payments apiece to the woman of then-CEO Tim Bedwell, Michele, and to her concern spouse Adam Kent, adjacent arsenic the nonprofit struggled to marque payroll and wage vendors.
Tim Bedwell has said that the payments were aboveboard and that committee members either knew of the payments oregon ought to person known. He said Michele Bedwell performed selling and fundraising functions, and Kent assumed enforcement duties.
Lutheran Social Services was founded 40 years agone by the Lutheran community. Until recently, section Lutheran churches regularly donated to the nonprofit and provided it with volunteers.
The Lutheran Church has nary nonstop power implicit the nonprofit, isolated from the constricted oversight provided by the 1 oregon 2 ministers who typically were portion of the committee of directors.
CEO moves on
The board’s 2 pastors — Schmitt and the Rev. Hans-Lothar Dettling — resigned successful December aft Tim Bedwell, Kent and committee Chair Carrie Cox refused to resign. Since then, Tim Bedwell, a erstwhile North Las Vegas constabulary officer, appears to person moved on.
His LinkedIn leafage indicates that his tenure arsenic CEO, which began successful January 2024, ended past month. He did not respond to a petition for comment.
He has launched BEDWELL, “a euphony and storytelling task built astir faith, grit, resilience, redemption, service, and emotion of country,” according to his page. He released a euphony video, “America is Worth the Work,” astir the Fourth of July vacation and has compiled a nine-track stone album.
In March, helium filed for divorcement from Michele Bedwell, stating that the mates had go incompatible, District Court records show.
The 3 individuals listed arsenic committee members connected the nonprofit’s website did not remark for this story. Attorney Jason Stoffel did not instrumentality a reporter’s telephone call. Shawn Davis confirmed helium remained a committee subordinate but deferred to Cox for comment. Cox returned a reporter’s telephone but past could not beryllium reached for an interview.
Building successful escrow
County spokesperson Jennifer Cooper said successful a caller email speech that the remaining members of the nonprofit “have moved guardant with selling the gathering to different non-profit.”
The merchantability is successful escrow, she said. She aboriginal confirmed the individuality of the imaginable buyer.
“It is my knowing that Hope Christian is the enactment purchasing the building,” she wrote. She did not cognize what services the enactment planned to provide.
Hope Christian Health Center is simply a federally qualified wellness center, meaning that it receives national backing for providing services successful underserved areas. The North Las Vegas-based halfway describes itself arsenic a “non-profit, faith-based household medicine center.”
Members of its enforcement squad did not respond to respective telephone messages from a reporter.
Schmitt said determination person agelong been plans for a wellness halfway connected Lutheran Social Services’ campus, which already includes a Boys & Girls Club, a charter schoolhouse and low-income housing.
“The region antecedently was alert of the pressing poorness connected the Boulder Highway corridor, and that’s 1 of the reasons they engaged successful this large development,” she said.
In December 2016, Clark County approved $5.8 cardinal successful national Community Development Block Grant funds for what was described arsenic the Boulder Highway Collaborative Campus. About fractional of the backing was to physique the Lutheran Social Services gathering and the different fractional a Boys & Girls Club, Cooper said.
In 2023, the region awarded $1.8 cardinal successful national assistance dollars for Lutheran Social Services to physique an summation that included an expanded kitchen.
This spring, the region was exploring its options regarding the Lutheran Social Services building, including whether it had a assertion to instrumentality possession of the building.
However, Cooper said precocious that the assistance backing awarded “did not mean that the County would instrumentality implicit gathering operations, that was not the volition of the dollars, arsenic reflected successful the deed restriction.”
The 2018 deed requires that the gathering stay a assemblage assets halfway for 15 years oregon that the region beryllium reimbursed based connected the existent just marketplace worth of the property.
“The CDBG funds provided implicit a decennary agone necessitate that the gathering beryllium utilized for definite purposes … and truthful agelong arsenic whomever occupies the abstraction continues to supply these types of services, determination is nary CDBG backing to recapture,” Cooper wrote connected Monday.
It’s unclear however the proceeds of a merchantability would beryllium used. However, Lutheran Social Services owes wealth to a slope and to vendors.
In 2024, the nonprofit utilized the gathering arsenic collateral to instrumentality retired a $750,000 enactment of recognition from MidFirst Bank, documents show. Jon Paul, the nonprofit’s part-time main fiscal serviceman for astir of 2025, said the enactment of recognition was tapped retired earlier helium joined the organization. It was not paid back, helium said.
Because the nonprofit did not person a wide rubric to the building, conversations astir the slope taking possession stalled, Paul told the Las Vegas Review-Journal earlier this year. A slope typical did not instrumentality a reporter’s call.
Paul, a subordinate of a section Lutheran church, continued to unpaid his services aft helium stopped getting paid successful July. The nonprofit owes him $25,000 successful pay, helium said.
He said helium was told successful precocious December that his services nary longer were required aft helium questioned a $42,300 outgo to Michele Bedwell erstwhile the nonprofit received $310,000 successful national taxation credits.
In November, Michele Bedwell told the Review-Journal that she continued to enactment for the nonprofit but had been paid lone $2,500 successful the erstwhile 5 months. In January, she said she nary longer worked there.
In December, Sting Alarm placed liens connected the spot for $25,200 successful unpaid labour and materials, according to records from the region recorder’s office. In June, Sting filed a announcement of lis pendens, a ceremonial enactment that alerts imaginable buyers of a quality involving the property, records show.
Paul said precocious that the pending merchantability of the building, and with it a caller start, sounded “very affirmative … but not needfully for the Lutherans” who had hoped earlier this twelvemonth to wrest backmost power of the nonprofit.
Demand letter
A June 15 request missive from the territory attorney’s bureau to the nonprofit states that it serves arsenic last announcement for repayment of $39,375 successful precocious outgo for services not provided and for documentation of the nonprofit’s requests for reimbursement.
The missive states that Clark County Social Services “made repeated efforts passim 2025, to enactment collaboratively with Lutheran Social Services of Nevada (LSSN) regarding reporting compliance, programme readiness, operational concerns, reimbursement submissions, and fiscal reconciliation.”
Deputy District Attorney Brandon Thompson wrote the missive to Cox and Kent, whom the missive identified arsenic the main operating serviceman and acting CEO.
“Despite aggregate meetings, extensions, and requests for clarification, outstanding fiscal and contractual obligations stay unresolved,” Thompson wrote.
Kent did not respond to a petition for comment.
Failure to comply with the demands could effect successful ineligible action, wrote Thompson, who works successful the civilian part of the territory attorney’s office.
The missive gave a deadline of July 6. As of July 9, the funds had not been paid.
“Conversations stay ongoing related to recouping the funds,” Cooper wrote to the Review-Journal.
The region nary longer contracts with the nonprofit to supply services, she said.
In April, the County Commission terminated 2 lodging contracts, including 1 to “provide assistance to families with children experiencing homelessness to rapidly modulation into imperishable housing,” according to a unit study accompanying the committee docket item.
No charges filed
In January, Las Vegas police interviewed aggregate erstwhile associates of the nonprofit. Police asked astir payments to Michele Bedwell and to Kent, and astir whether determination had been payments to Cox, a Henderson City Council member.
Detectives besides asked astir a $10 cardinal declaration awarded to Lutheran Social Services by the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority successful August 2024 and terminated a twelvemonth aboriginal aft the nonprofit had been paid astir $600,000.
The Review-Journal asked the Police Department for the audio oregon transcripts of interviews that are portion of this inquiry. The section denied the request, stating that the records “pertain to an unfastened transgression probe and/or transgression proceedings.”
No charges person been filed successful transportation with the nonprofit’s fiscal dealings.
The nationalist integrity portion of the Metropolitan Police Department, which interviewed the nonprofit’s erstwhile associates, is the aforesaid portion that investigated Cox connected a abstracted matter.
In November, Cox was indicted nether a seldom utilized authorities instrumentality connected a felony complaint alleging she eavesdropped connected a chap assembly subordinate and surreptitiously recorded her conversation. She has pleaded not guilty.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit inactive occasionally distributes nutrient and different items from its headquarters.
On July 8, workers astatine the pantry were handing retired bags of nutrient to a dependable trickle of radical who showed up astatine its doors. Looking done her 3 bags, lawsuit Marissa Johnson said she had received apples, onions, breadstuff and doughnuts.
After ushering a newsman retired of the building, a idiosyncratic said caller donations had made the organisation possible. She declined to springiness her name.
“That’s each I’m going to archer you. Thank you. Have a bully day,” the idiosyncratic said earlier the pantry doorway slammed and locked.
Contact investigative newsman Mary Hynes astatine mhynes@reviewjournal.com oregon astatine 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 connected X.
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