Beware Veterans Charities; Telethon Season Has Begun
Vets and Dogs: What's Not To Like? Read on.
It’s that time of year, appropriately just before Thanksgiving, to give thanks to a veteran. In our midst are those veterans that carry serious wounds and illnesses from their time in service, both obvious and veiled. Some are homeless and some live in a state of despair.
One way to show our appreciation is to be mindful of charities that pretend to help veterans, when their real purpose is to line management’s pockets.
For several years, in my paying job, I have been researching and writing about one of those “charities.” It is called K9s For Warriors.
K9s For Warriors is headquartered across the river in Ponte Vedra, with satellite locations in the area and in San Antonio, Texas. K9s is a charity that advertises they save shelter dogs, train them to be psychiatric service dogs, then pair them with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and sexual assault (SA). They are the largest facility in the entire world that allegedly pairs service dogs with veterans.
Notice, I said “allegedly.”
K9s chooses military holidays to pander for donations in Northeast Florida. Their ritual surrounding each Veterans Day is K9s For Warriors Annual Telethon.
K9s was a small organization found in 2011 by Shari Duval. Her son came back from Iraq with severe PTSD. After being given a service dog, he was less symptomatic.
Service dogs are not “comfort dogs.” They are working dogs and can be trained to do some amazing things to help a warrior both physically, emotionally, and mentally. But not every Fido, Fergus, and Otis can become a real service dog, they have to be of a certain size, temperament, and intellect. There is a long list of non-trainable traits for service dogs.
K9s existed on donations. Duval’s husband and stepson, David Duval, were golfers and helped to raise money, so soldiers were never charged for travel, shelter or dogs.
Because of the associated expenses, Shari could not afford buy dogs. A few were donated, but most were found in shelter across Florida and surrounding states. Dogs that have been abandoned, abused, or those that have been in the shelters for many months cannot typically be trained as service dogs, so Duval’s team faced a challenge.
Training for a service dog takes at least nine months and many dogs wash out along the way. Consequently, even though K9s was a godsend and well-respected, because of the length of training, the availability of dogs, and funds to pay trainers, they were only able to help a maximum of about 30 soldiers a year.
That started to change in late 2014, when Rory Diamond was hired.
Diamond, a recent Florida transplant and young lawyer that appeared to have become disenchanted with the law, approached Shari for a job. Because of his very impressive resume, Shari hired him as a director.
Diamond made some problematic mistakes. He hired a host of new people, one was his then-boyfriend. But the biggy was documented in a deposition and witness statements. Diamond got rip-roaring drunk at a conference in Colorado, brought a prostitute, used the “C” word when bragging about firing women, and made a fool of himself and K9s.
High-ranking veterans who were raising money wanted him gone. But he hired a lawyer to work for K9s at a six-figure income and had loaded the Board of Directors with friendly board members. Diamond was able to oust founder Shari Duval and become CEO at a yearly salary of $300,000-plus.
The new CEO became the media’s darling as K9s professed to save poor unfortunate dogs and wounded warriors. He used charity monies and his position as a charitable CEO to get elected to the Jacksonville City Council.
K9s was in shambles under Diamond’s direction.
Employees said “advisors” suggested K9s seek state and federal grants. The grants required K9s to pair a certain number of dogs with veterans to maintain the grants. To keep up with the demands of the grants, trainers said for years they have been forced to attempt to do the impossible: Teach dogs complicated tasks in three months that would take almost a year to accomplish, even if the dog was capable to be a service dog.
One trainer said she had not seen a real service dog paired with a veteran since she arrived in 2018.
Arriving at K9s to get a dog was a long and arduous journey for warriors. The waiting list was three to five years, depending on whom you talked with. While K9s paid for travel, veteran’s physical and psychological limitations caused major upheavals in their life. Those that made the trip said their PTSD became almost unmanageable when they came to the disruptive atmosphere at K9s, attempted to bond and train a dog that was obviously never going to meet their needs, then faced the devastating task of returning the dog.
Oddly, most folks are hesitant to criticize charities for children, veterans and animals. That became evident at K9s.
Veterans, trainers, employees, and volunteers tried to report the mismanagement and “fake-dogs” at K9s to the media, but they turned away. The local media continued to provide touchy-feeling videos of warrior and shelter dogs.
After the review of financial documents and the interview of veterans, trainers, volunteers, and administrative employees, it became abundantly clear that Diamond used K9s’ dime to live an extravagant lifestyle. With no oversight, he used his expense account to pay for personal and whimsical activities and items. Paramours accompanied him on lavish vacations where he paid for expensive meals and fancy cars.
Additionally, Diamond’s resume must have been dreamed up while smoking something funny. He came from a monied family around Las Vegas and had very few W2 jobs.
Most of the dogs paired with veterans at K9s were not shelter dogs as advertised, but purchased and donated dogs. Worse, sources for this information turned out to be correct. The pairing of veterans with psychiatric service dogs were the rare exceptions.
Additionally, a spread sheet showed over a hundred dogs had been returned. Administrative employees said K9s did not list many dogs that were returned.
After Diamond’s deceit was revealed in 2022, at 42 he joined the Florida National Guard and left town for months for training. When he returned, he made a big media announcement that he was leaving.
“I am compelled by my heart and convictions to focus on military service and serving a second term on the Jacksonville City Council.” Diamond told the media.
His salary from the city and his base pay with the guard was approximately $75,000 yearly.
Several people close to K9s board members said he was given a choice to leave or be fired. Accordingly, I figured the only heartfelt convictions the CEO was feeling was a desire to get out of the line of fire. I also wondered how he planned to pay the mortgage on the Neptune Beach house he had recently purchased.
When Diamond left K9s and put his beach house up for sale, Carl Cricco, who had previously been the public relations person, was made CEO.
Employees said Cricco had “no experience” for the job but has made a big show of calling the charity the “New K9s.” Still, employees said, K9s is doing the same things in the same way they had always done.
This weekend, when you see those pretty people on TV using K9s’ fake heartwarming videos that are used to persuade you to give them money, just flip over to something more real like wrastling. If you’ve already donated, cancel your donation, and send it to organizations that actually help veterans.
Our veterans deserve a helluva lot more than places like K9s for Warriors pretend to give.
The article is timely because K9s will tout its excellent work, which is a bare-faced lie, to encourage "giving". The organization is another example of a good organization ruined by self-centered, corrupt management. The mission was to help veterans, not line the pockets of the leadership. The original idea was cast aside when Shari Duval was ousted. In the beginning according to Shari, "these dogs worked miracles". She knew first hand her son Brett (who suffered from PTSD) had one of the dogs. She could vouch that it worked. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on those who took over.