The head of an Oregon-based disaster relief nonprofit that was founded after the destructive Labor Day wildfires in 2020 allegedly misspent donations on strip clubs, casino visits and other illicit expenses.
Marcus Brooks, the founder and director of Cascade Relief Team, based in the coastal town of Otis, allegedly siphoned $837,000 of donations to the nonprofit that were earmarked for victims of wildfires, floods and tornadoes in Oregon and Kentucky.
In a 24-page lawsuit filed Thursday, the Oregon Department of Justice claims Brooks set up the organization with a “disinterested board of directors” to reap donations — largely from Oregonians — and public contracts.
Those dollars paid Brooks’ salary and a slew of illegal expenses. The complaint alleges he spent $270,861 on credit cards and personal bills; $67,885 on rent, child support, liquor, jewelry, restaurants and entertainment; $116,133 in travel expenses without any “recognizable connection to disaster relief,” including stops at Disneyland and vacation rentals in Florida.
Brooks spent at least $6,000 at casinos, the complaint claims. The Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal joined Rayfield in the suit.
An OPB reporter made multiple attempts to contact Brooks through two phone numbers associated with him and the nonprofit but received no response by press time.
Rayfield, in a statement, pledged to hold Brooks “accountable for every dollar he took.”
“Oregonians donated to this organization because they wanted to help their neighbors recover from wildfire and floods,” the attorney general wrote. “Instead, that money went into one man’s pocket.”
Investigators said Brooks formed Cascade Relief Team in the wake of the deadliest wildfire season in Oregon’s history. Around Labor Day weekend 2020, multiple fires roared to life across the state to torch more than a million acres combined.
Among the devastation, the Alameda Fire in southern Oregon razed more than 2,600 homes and a conflagration in the Santiam Canyon destroyed another 1,500 structures. Eleven people died during the fires.
Brooks “capitalized” on the devastation, investigators said, by forming a “sham” organization that was governed by board members who, ultimately, never attended any meetings or saw any financial records.
Donations poured in. The organization notched $48,000 in revenue in 2020 and another $941,587 in 2021, according to public filings required of nonprofit organizations.
Brooks, meanwhile, began a pattern of drying out bank accounts. Investigators said he opened several accounts at a time for donations, spent them into the red and ignored rising bank fees. Banks would close his accounts, only for Brooks to move on to another financial institution. Investigators said Brooks had opened and used about 26 different bank accounts.
Brooks’ organization also collected contract money through government agencies and disaster relief organizations. At one point, the Oregon Department of Human Services paid the organization $60 an hour to help disaster-struck Oregonians but did not renew the eight-month contract after developing “concerns” about the organization, according to the complaint.
Brooks also landed a $100,000 contract with the Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal to clean up debris and help remove trees associated with multiple wildfires in the state. He ghosted the organization shortly after getting the grant, the complaint said, and never completed the work.
In November 2023, Brooks landed a $326,000 contract with the Red Cross to help tornado victims in Kentucky. That money was sent to an account with $17,000 in overdraft fees, leaving $309,000 remaining that Brooks never doled out to tornado victims, according to investigators.
Oregon Justice Department officials wrote in the complaint that they hoped to see Brooks ordered to repay the donations and pay the costs associated with the lawsuit and investigation. They also suggested that Brooks be permanently ban him from any fiduciary duties of a charity.
