Man sentenced in theft, fraud cases involving Never Summer Nordic Yurts, Gould nonprofit
A man who admitted to stealing from a Gould community nonprofit and committing fraud while operating the now-closed Never Summer Nordic yurt system has been sentenced to jail and will be required to pay restitution to more than 100 identified victims.
Bron Deal, 40, was sentenced to 60 days in jail and four years of supervised probation Friday in two separate cases. In those cases, Deal previously pleaded guilty to:
One count of theft, a Class 5 felony, for embezzling funds from the Gould Community Association.
One count of fraud in effecting sales, a Class 2 misdemeanor, for continuing to accept reservations and online payments for yurts through Never Summer Nordic after the state shut it down.
In total, Deputy District Attorney Matthew Pring said Deal diverted or embezzled more than $300,000 over both cases, but the plea agreement stipulates Deal will only have to repay a total of almost $25,000, which Pring called "a travesty of justice."
"Our justice system cannot account for what he did," Pring said.
Deal embezzled funds from the Gould Community Association — a nonprofit of which he was the treasurer — throughout 2022 and appeared to have falsified financial statements to try and cover it up, Judge Stephen Jouard said during Deal's sentencing hearing Friday afternoon.
Never Summer Nordic — which Deal operated with owner Greg Graves, who has not been criminally charged — continued accepting online reservations and payments after it was shut down by Colorado Parks and Wildlife for violating the terms of its business contract, according to the district attorney's office.
During Friday's sentencing hearing, Pring estimated the number of people who paid for yurt reservations that weren't fulfilled or reimbursed could be as high as 900, with a potential total of more than $300,000 in fraudulent reservations. Pring said only a fraction of those people — 107, according to a district attorney's office news release — were identified as victims and requested money back through the court's restitution system. Pring said it is likely others requested refunds through their credit cards or banks, while some whose reservations have not occurred yet may not yet know they have paid for a reservation they don't have.
Deal's attorney, Jeremy Wooten, disagreed with Pring's estimated number of potential victims and said he could not come up with that amount while trying to account for the fraudulent reservations, which is why the attorneys eventually agreed on the amount of restitution they did.
Jouard said it's unclear exactly where the funds from those fraudulent reservations went.
In total, Deal has been ordered to repay just over $24,600 between the two cases. The restitution breaks down like this:
$13,699.59 to be repaid to the Gould Community Association.
$10,917.59 to be repaid to people who made yurt reservations that couldn't be fulfilled.
Wooten said Deal has plans to quickly pay back the restitution he owes and is willing to take out loans to do so.
Deal told the court and the community he was "very sorry for what happened," but also that he was "blindsided" by these charges.
"I didn't steal money intentionally. I didn't maliciously take money. I didn't become treasurer to do so," Deal said, referring to the theft case involving Gould Community Association funds. "... This was a mistake I did make, and I take ownership of that."
Deal said his grandfather — who he said helped raise him and who he is now a caretaker for in Oklahoma — "raised me to be a better man than what this portrays."
Pring asked for some jail time in these cases because he said it didn't seem like Deal was taking accountability for his actions. But Wooten said Deal has recognized the harm he has caused and "is remorseful for what has happened to the Gould community."
"This was reckless disregard for the harm that could result," Wooten said of Deal's actions.
The Gould Community Association told the Coloradoan last year it was forced to cancel its February 2023 Ski Scramble because it had "none of the thousands of dollars of Ski Scramble supplies purchased (supposedly) during Bron's time as treasurer." Others who paid for yurt reservations after Never Summer Nordic's contract was terminated previously told the Coloradoan they were out hundreds of dollars and had to console "heartbroken" children.
More: Walden business owners say men behind Never Summer Nordic yurts left trail of unpaid bills
Zelda Keim, who spoke during Friday's sentencing hearing, said she worked for Deal for two years. In that time, she said, Deal had her lie to customers in their small community, and when it came time for Deal to pay her and her other family members he owed money to, he refused.
"I trusted Bron Deal very well, my family trusted him, and I guess he just thought it was a joke," Keim said. "... We have a whole community and whole small town that is suffering because of him."
Deal denied "maliciously" taking money from people, including Keim, during his statement later in the hearing.
Jouard said Deal has been "minimizing his conduct" by characterizing some of his actions as "operational errors," even though there is evidence of him falsifying documents to try to cover his tracks. Because of that, Jouard said he agreed with the prosecution that jail was appropriate as a punitive sanction in this case.
While on probation, Deal will be required to follow specific requirements for those convicted of economic crimes, unless otherwise approved by his probation officer. Those requirements include:
Not acquiring any new debt or entering into any new financial contract or obligations.
Not owning a business or being employed or volunteering in a position where he has access to finances or personal information of other individuals.
Providing budgets, financial documents (including tax records and bank statements) and credit reports when requested by his probation officer.
Notifying his probation officer of all current and pending civil actions, including bankruptcies.
Cooperating with an independent financial audit and/or tracking of his finances by a third party at the request of his probation officer.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Man sentenced to jail in Northern Colorado theft, fraud cases
