Triangle youth basketball coach faces decades in federal prison for charity fraud scheme

A major player in the Triangle youth basketball scene has pleaded guilty in a nearly $600,000 charity fraud scheme.

Dwayne Moorer West, 60, of Fuquay-Varina, faces up to 20 years in prison for “devising and executing a scheme” to defraud a company by obtaining matching charitable contributions to a nonprofit he owned.

West is the brother of former NBA player David West and ran the Garner Road Basketball Club as its executive director from 2000-19. He was previously named one of The News & Observer’s 10 most influential people in Triangle sports and was inducted into the North Carolina Amateur Athletic Union Hall of Fame. Around 200 Garner Road players earned college scholarships, with 15 playing professional basketball, during West’s tenure as executive director.

Through the Wake County-based organization called Boys and Girls Succeed, or BAGS, that West owned, he defrauded Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, known as PCS, by fraudulently obtaining matched charitable contributions from PCS.

While based in Canada, PCS had plant locations in the U.S., including one in the Beaufort County community of Aurora. PCS merged with Agrium in 2018 to become Nutrien, which still runs the Nutrien Aurora Phosphate facility.

West worked with Michael Lavern King, a PCS employee, and Martin Fareed Abdullah, a BAGS employee, to get bank checks from PCS employees that showed large charitable donations from PCS employees to BAGS foundation. The fraudulent checks were then used as donation receipts for PCS to match as part of its charitable program. The PCS employees, as many as 13 people, according to court documents, never made donations to BAGS and instead got quarterly $500 kickbacks from the three people for using their employee information.

King and Abdullah plead guilty on Jan. 23. Their sentencing hearings are scheduled for May 30. West’s sentencing date is June 11.

“Many companies encourage their employees to support local charities by matching their employees’ charitable contributions,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Easley in a news release. “This defendant recruited PSC employees to make fake donations to his charity so he could fraudulently secure over a half-million dollars in matching funds from PSC. He then paid kickbacks to the employees. This defendant was driven by greed to take advantage of a charitable program meant to help those in need. He now faces federal prison.”

The BAGS was a real nonprofit but “provided very minimal services,” according to U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The scheme took place between 2010 and 2018, the same time West led the Garner Road Basketball Club. Tax documents show the BAGS foundation had the same address as the basketball club.

A phone call and email to the current director of the club was not returned.

Staff Writer Steve Wiseman contributed to this article