Michael Dudley

I lent Auntie Helen's $3,000 in January when I got a frantic call from Michael Dudley asking me for $5,000 because he couldn't make rent and payroll. I only had $3K to loan and I immediately called my Branch Manager at my bank and had her draft a check for the $3K that Michael picked up within one hour.

My only request was I needed to be repaid by mid-March so I can pay my property taxes. Michael Dudley is refusing to repay me.

When I went to the store last week to talk to him about a solution, he got agitated and sarcastic looked at me slyly and said "Auntie's doesn't have the money to pay you back". I said " You need to pay me back Michael, that's all the money I have." He spun around his chair with his back to me and snarled "You lent the money to Auntie Helen's, not me." He started working on his computer and ignored me. I saw that Michael was on Adam4Adam at the time I walked in and throughout the time I was there trying to discuss this situation. An Executive Director of an organization that is 'broke" trolling for sex during business hours?

I replied "You and the Board need to infuse Auntie Helen's with the $3K to repay me, put in $1,000 each and you guys pay yourselves back as you go, I have to pay my property taxes." Michael refused saying "we won't do that" looking at me with black eyes and then said "I'm calling the police." Really? Because I want to be repaid a loan?

So Michael walked away from me to the front cash register desk and "called the police". Then I left the store and got a voicemail from a blocked number and a male voice that could barely enunciate claiming to be the SDPD. He said he was calling about the "incident with Michael Dudley at Auntie Helen's". Problem was the caller did not identify himself, tell me a case or incident number nor leave me a callback number." Really, that was SDPD calling?

Then I received a text from Michael claiming the police now had my license plate number (what is that number BTW, Michael?), my home address, etc. I have yet to this day seen or received a call from the SDPD. Now I hear there is a rumor going around SD that I have been arrested. I am in Palm Springs caring for my 84 year old Mom, hardly arrested. Seems to many that Michael's practice historically (EG: the Hank Ivey incident) is to do character assassinations to support fictional incidents where fiscal impropriety occurs.

I also lent Auntie Helen's $8,000 last year to pay for almost all of the store renovations for the new location on 30th street. I have the cancelled checks I wrote to Knutson Electric and the pairing firm to pay for their services on the Auntie Helen's project. I have invoices from them to show those checks were to pay for Auntie Helen's work. I also spent countless unpaid volunteer hours General Contracting the entire project and many unpaid volunteer hours of my own manual labor for Michael and Auntie Helen's. That $8K construction/materials loan was promised to be repaid in three months and it dragged for many, many months into November. Michael said there is no money because business was slow due to surface street work on 30th. Michael told me they were waiting for the Gary Cheatham estate to be settled as they were expecting a large donation from that estate. He showed me a letter from the attorney handling the Cheatham Estate outlying how the estate was to be disbursed throughout the community.

Well, where did all that Gary Cheatham endowment go that Auntie's received in November? It was well into six figures. There was also an estimated quarter million endowment from the Roger Moser estate Auntie Helen's received a year ago. Where is that money?

One discussion I had with Michael, I don't recall the context now, Michael was bragging he has almost $70K in cash in a safe at his home. I am also curious how Gary Cheatham, a man I never knew but know some of his story, had almost a $2 million estate from working as E.D. for a poor, downtrodden non-profit thrift store.

Also, do you know that Auntie Helen's gets food donated from Trader Joes each Friday night to be used for and distributed to the homeless? Well, guess who is at the store Friday nights at 9PM like clockwork each week raiding the pantry? The Board, the employees and a few select volunteers and friends like Bishop McDermott. There is barely any food left for Saturday distribution to the homeless.

I have spent numerous volunteer hours at the new store on 30th Street and the only laundry I have personally seen done there when I was helping in the back, was the laundry of the Board members, employees and/or volunteers.

A few days after all of this occurred, I got a random email from the SDPD claiming they could not reach me. I never got a call after that first pseudo-SDPD voicemail. My Mom told me last week someone called her house number looking for me. No one has that number except Mom's doctor and a few of her friends and our relatives....and Michael Dudley and Colin Ashman (dearly departed) have Mom's number because I graciously opened my home to Michael on two or three occasions to stay at our house with Mom in Palm Springs. I gave Michael my Mom's number to call her for arrival times, etc.

I am told Michael has filed a false claim and lying to the police about me and creating a story that I assaulted him. I just got wind two days ago that there is a rumor going around San Diego started by regular customers/friends at Auntie Helen's that I have been arrested. I am in Palm Springs caring for my 84 year old Mom. I have never, ever been arrested.

Wow, that $3,000 must be really important to him after all the work and fundraising and volunteering I have done for him and Auntie Helen's for the last three years. Look through all of the posts on the Auntie Helen's page and Michaels personal page....you see only two friends. I pray Michael is not using again or any other bad things happening in his life to warrant such behavior.

I sent these comments twice to Todd Gloria's office as well with no reply. I also sent to the Editors desk at the U-T, The U-T did call me.