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Norm Ryan Finally Goes to Trial
Hard to believe it’s nearly been a year since we first covered the story of Norm Ryan, the former Haven Humane Society CEO accused of taking money from the animal shelter.
On Tuesday Ryan will go to trial on charges of embezzling $1,387 from Haven.
From the get-go this story has been as twisted as the road to Buckhorn Summit.
The Jan. 30 preliminary hearing transcript showcases such details as how Yvonne Preston, former Haven president and interim CEO, asked the Redding Police Department to investigate Ryan for a colorful list of accusations, none of which RPD was able to pin on Ryan:
$300,000 unaccounted for, missing “doggie bank” money, receipt of “unauthorized” Blue Cross money, and Blue Cross Cobra money, among other things. (Read more about these details in the transcript here on pages 22 through 27.)
Absent those above charges, the case against Ryan boiled down to a conference in Chicago he never attended, and a personal trip to Guam. Was there some misunderstanding? Was he lying? Whose money did he use for travel? Did he falsify airline documents? (Read about it here on pages 27 through 29.)
The name of Leonard Moty, the previous Redding Police Chief, even came up. The transcript reported that Moty and Ryan had a “bitter disagreement” regarding the relocation of the police department. (Read transcript pages 37 to 39 for more.)
So a year has passed. Ryan and his family have remained in Redding.
Sources say he’s been unemployed since he left Haven, that he’s lived on money from the sale of his Long Beach house before he moved to Redding; money the Ryan’s had planned to use for their sons’ education. He’s applied for a couple of minimum wage warehouse jobs, without success. (No wonder. Google Norm Ryan and see what pops up.)
Come Tuesday, Ryan’s story continues. For better or worse.
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See below for more background:
Feb. 26 - Kelly wrote about Norm Ryan’s arraignment.
Jan. 30 - Kelly wrote that Norm would stand trial for his charges of ripping off Haven Humane Society.
Click here to read all the related stories, and click here to read Kelly’s blog more than a year ago (before she and I joined forces on A News Cafe) about Norm Ryan’s departure from Haven.
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I hope the guy gets a fair trial. I often think that publicity can create some really rocky detours on the path to justice.
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Doni…It’s about time that Mr. Ryan faces the charges against him. The wheels of justice move way too slow in metting out a sentence against the accused.
Good luck Norman. You’ll need it!
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Yes, Mr. Ryan needs a fair trial; there has to be proof behind all those accusations. My feeling these days, though, is there is much dishonesty going on, and there is a lot of desperation out there.
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The publicity Norm has gotten has been pretty subdued considering all the damage he did to a previously well respected non-profit animal society in less than a year. He wouldn’t be in court at all, if he hadn’t mislead so many people about so many things. All the staff and board were under a gag order and some people lost their jobs just trying to straighten out internal problems before they reached the public. What a shame.
Norm’s first lawyer left him and he now has a big dollar criminal lawyer. This should say something about Norm, who was hired to do a job that he had no qualifications for. It is just too bad, he isn’t being charged for all the other expenses and loss of money his manipulating and misinformation caused. Maybe he isn’t the only one who should be investigated.
Norm’s previous history in Long Beach isn’t glamorous either.
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Norcal,
I could just kick myself! Here I was actually wasting time reading the facts that Doni had so graciously provided, when I could just have listened to your opinion instead. Well, I’m an old man who has old-fashioned ideas about informed opinion. From what I have read I’m tempted to accuse you of being DA Erin Dervin - because neither of you seems to have much of a case against Norm Ryan, except histrionics.
I am, frankly, quite stunned by the expenditure of my tax dollars to go after a man on someone’s say so, especially if that person is Yvonne Preston. How can you accuse someone of stealing $300,000 and not have the goods on him? It can’t be that hard to prove, can it? All you have to do is show that you are missing that much money and that somehow it ended up in Mr. Ryan’s bank account. It appears Yvonne Preston couldn’t be bothered to actually do much more than make an accusation - or several. Why bother when Moty’s boys-in-blue are eager to investigate any allegations against someone who has “bitter disagreements” with their boss?
For those of you who feel tempted to bleat your defense of Yvonne Preston by asking, “What did she have to gain?” Ask yourself, instead, “What did Norm Ryan have to gain?” He takes a check for an authorized trip to Portland and is then accused of theft because Yvonne Preston says it wasn’t for Portland, but for a fake trip to Chicago instead. The Police go along with this because they have a copy of a fake ticket that Mr. Ryan is supposed to have submitted. Who says it is fake? Yvonne Preston. Who gave it to the police? Yvonne Preston. Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?
I can’t tell you exactly why, when I first started reading about this case, that I felt like a miscarriage of justice was happening before my eyes. Everything that Doni has managed to cobble together has solidified that view. The Police Summaries and these transcripts from the Preliminary Hearing have painted a chilling picture for me of how the establishment can decide you are guilty in advance of the facts. That Norcal can cheer this on, makes me recall Lenin’s term for people like this: Useful Idiots.
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Where did Portland come into the picture? Didn’t he, in fact, go to Guam when he supposed to be in Chicago. Maybe Ms. Preston should be looked into????
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Portland comes in because he did go there with Capt. Smith and then didn’t get reimbursed for the trip, so maybe kept the money for Chicago as a trade off.
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