Cancer Society Officer Accused of Stealing

A top executive of the American Cancer Society’s Ohio Division has been accused of embezzling nearly $7-million.

According to an affidavit filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, Daniel S. Wiant, chief administrative officer in the society’s Ohio headquarters, phoned his wife, Kathy, on June 2 and told her that he was never coming home again and that he had embezzled the money.

The next day, Mrs. Wiant found a letter from her husband in which he said he had paid off all their debts with the stolen money, and gave her instructions on how to meet up with him in the future, the affidavit said.

When Cancer Society officials checked the charity’s records, the FBI affidavit added, they found that Mr. Wiant had written a letter in May to Fifth Third Bank, instructing it to wire $6.9-million from the organization’s account to the Hypo Tirol Bank in Austria. The money was placed in an account under the name Dane, Forrest, Hawkins, the affidavit said. Mr. Wiant had said the funds were for research grants.

The court document quoted Don McClure, executive vice president of the society’s Ohio division, as saying that Mr. Wiant was not authorized by the charity to make the wire transfer and that no such research grants existed.

Joann Schellenbach, a spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society’s national headquarters, said the organization was “astounded” by the situation. She said that all the society’s divisions have financial safeguards in place to prevent embezzlement and other misuses of funds.