A longtime Canadian businessman living in Kyiv is accused of improperly withholding $50,000 in charity money while he was treasurer of an internationally-affiliated community service organization.
Members of Kyiv Rotary Club say Myron Spolsky, 59, has since April failed to account for money that the organization raised to buy prenatal equipment for area hospitals. They also say he has stalled their requests with one excuse after another.
“If he’s stealing, he’s not stealing from us, he’s stealing from the community,” Roman Shwed, the group’s president, said. “It’s money we raised to do good.”
Spolsky called allegations of theft “absolutely wrong, and firstly, I never stole any money.”
Spolsky, an international trader and owner of two Kyiv pizzerias, said the money is being kept in a safety deposit box. He said he will return the money after an audit is completed soon.
The audit was launched in August, according to Spolsky, to determine the exact amount that he owes.
Spolsky served as Rotary Club treasurer from July 2009 until June of this year.
The club has written formal complaints to the Canadian Embassy, the Canadian Business Club and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, the latter of which Spolsky represents on the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council under the Ukrainian World Congress. But Shwed says they have not gone to police yet because they still hope to get the money back.
Shwed said club members decided to go public with the allegations after failing to retrieve the money for eight months, despite what he says were numerous pledges from Spolsky to return the funds.
“He claims he has the money, but he’s giving countless excuses for not returning the money,” Shwed said. “As the Rotary Club, we try to find an amicable solution. He’s here. He’s not running away.”
The club’s members say they asked Spolsky to hand over records in April and all money available at the time, after he started missing regular meetings in February.
Spolsky said he was frequently travelling on business until April when he began suffering from heart complications which kept him from assuming daily operations for four months. When he recovered, Spolsky said, he initiated the audit.
Until a month and a half ago, Spolsky said the group’s money was kept in a safe in his office on Honchara Street.
However former club president Dirk Lustig is skeptical that an audit could take so long. “Our finances aren’t complicated, we appointed our own auditor who is an American ready to do this if Spolsky would show us the financial records,” Lustig said.
Spolsky said he was never asked to hand over the club’s financial records.
Lustig said Spolsky said he would return the money by Sept. 1, when the audit was supposed to be done originally. But Spolsky said the audit is taking longer because there are “thousands of entries and sub-sheets that need to be reviewed.”
Shwed, a retired architect from Philadelphia, and Lustig, who owns a toy-distribution company, said Spolsky has given different accounts.
Shwed told the Kyiv Post that Spolsky also has not shown good faith by not initiating contact with the group. Spolsky countered that he has never avoided phone calls and could account for all his actions.
Lustig and other club members even confronted Spolsky in his office.Spolsky first said he didn’t have the key to his safe. Then, according to Lustig, Spolsky changed his story and said “his business partner had the money.”
Other expatriates who live or used to live in Kyiv also say Spolsky owes them money.
Canadian Lidia Wolanskyj, the former publisher of the defunct Eastern Economist magazine, said Spolsky owes her $10,000 dating from 2003 when he purchased the magazine from her. Spolsky said he never bought the magazine because the company was in “bad shape.”
What’s On magazine’s Neil Campbell told the Kyiv Post that Spolsky has an advertising debt with the publication, but wouldn’t disclose the amount.
And a former employee who has since moved back to Canada said Spolsky owes him $4,000 in back pay.
Illarion Shulakewych said Spolsky didn’t pay him for the last four months of his IT employment. “Numerous times I asked for at least partial payment to show good will in an honest effort to pay off his debt, but nothing,” Shulakewych said in an e-mailed message.
Spolsky said that Shulakewych was working at other jobs and servicing other companies’ servers at his office so he believes he owes nothing.
There are 43 Rotary clubs in Ukraine and some 40,000 clubs worldwide. Although Kyiv Multinational Rotary Club in September purchased and delivered five incubators, Shwed said the club could have bought five more with the money he says Spolsky is holding back.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
