WILLOUGHBY TOOK GROUP'S $80,000, WARRANT ALLEGES

The state attorney general's office has charged the former head of
Pennsylvania's D.A.R.E. program with stealing more than $80,000 from the
anti-drug program and using his position to obtain free booze, food and
rooms worth $32,000 from an area hotel.

Agents have been scouring Harrisburg bars and contacting Roy A.
Willoughby's family members and friends since issuing an arrest warrant
Monday, but have been unable to find him.

The money was stolen from grants to the Pennsylvania D.A.R.E. Officers
Association that Willoughby helped procure in his position as
crime-prevention manager of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and
Delinquency, according to the 33-count warrant.

Willoughby, who has a felony record for burglary and theft, was fired from
his position after his fourth drunken-driving arrest in April 2001. He also
is charged with lying on state forms about prior convictions and gifts he
received.

Sean Connolly, a spokesman for Attorney General Mike Fisher, said his
office does not know where Willoughby is. Willoughby lived above his
mother's bar on South 19th Street.

"Anyone with information of his whereabouts is asked to call our office,"
Connolly said.

The warrant charges Willoughby with eight counts of theft by deception, 22
counts of forgery, two ethics violations and one count of perjury.

The arrest documents detail continuing scams during Willoughby's last three
years with the PCCD, which asked for the investigation after Willoughby was
dismissed and it discovered he was asking the officers association for
unauthorized checks.

Leaders of the officers association, which had its PCCD funding suspended,
said Willoughby would apply for their grants, then ask them for checks.

The national drug-awareness program has become one of the most prominent
and controversial of such programs. D.A.R.E. puts police officers in
schools to teach pupils about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

While it is praised by many law-enforcement and education groups as an
effective deterrent, the U.S. surgeon general and the National Academy of
Sciences issued reports last year saying D.A.R.E. was largely ineffective.

The officers association was forced to return $204,468 in unspent money to
the PCCD after a commission audit showed widespread mismanagement with
little oversight of millions of dollars in grants.

Between 1998 and last year, Willoughby cashed 10 checks totaling $45,600
from the officers association that were purportedly for billboards, the
warrant says. The checks were written to Willoughby's stepbrother, Ira E.
Kreitzer, who died on March 23, 2000, and had been incarcerated before that.

Willoughby also deposited $20,917 in checks from the officers association
written out to Lipman Printing, the documents say. Jack Killian, treasurer
of the association, told investigator R. Kirby Conrad that he had no idea
what the checks were for and that he wrote them because Willoughby asked
for them, the affidavit says.

Willoughby also cashed smaller checks for supplies and hotel room deposits
written out in other people's names that had been returned, the warrant says.

Willoughby allegedly received several thousand dollars in his mother's name
and deposited the checks in his account. According to the warrant, he told
Killian he had used his mother's credit card to buy drinks and snacks at
conventions.

Some of the receipts he used to justify the expenses were for $566 in
purchases from Discount Tobacco in Nashville, Tenn., which sells alcohol
and cigarettes. The documents say grant money cannot be used to buy alcohol
or tobacco.

The warrant says his mother, Claire Weldon, told investigators she never
saw or endorsed the checks written to her.

The yearlong investigation also uncovered a connection between Willoughby
and the owners of Holiday Inn-West, which hosted numerous D.A.R.E.
conventions and meetings.

A search of records at the hotel and bar showed Willoughby received $22,000
in complimentary food and drink and $10,000 in complimentary rooms between
1998 and 2001.

Kenneth Kochenour, president of GF Management Inc., told investigators the
hotel comped Willoughby because he "pushed a tremendous amount of business"
to them.

Kochenour told agents that at one point Willoughby faxed him a list of
conferences and events that he claimed credit for bringing to the Holiday
Inn-West.

According to the warrant, one fax was an internal PCCD memo showing that
$140,000 in grant funds were going to be used for school resource officer
training at the hotel.

Kochenour flew Willoughby on his private jet to GF Management properties in
Charlotte, N.C., and Orlando, Fla., while he was supposedly doing a "site
visit" for symposiums for the International Society of Crime Prevention
Practitioners, the warrant says.

Willoughby used vacation time for the trip and the international group's
officials told investigators that he was not on official business at the time.

Kochenour also took Willoughby to the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa at a cost of
$1,905, the warrant says.

Kochenour's attorney, James J. West, said his client did nothing illegal
and fully cooperated with the investigation.

Willoughby's 30-year tenure at the PCCD unraveled after his fourth
drunken-driving arrest in April 2001, in Lemoyne. He had previously been
reprimanded for drunken-driving convictions and was dismissed from the
$64,607-a-year position in May 2001.

Willoughby, 55, was hired as a clerk from a halfway house in 1971 after
serving time in state prison for a series of burglaries.

By the time he was promoted to criminal planning manager in 1995,
Willoughby had been reprimanded and suspended for two drunken-driving
convictions in Cumberland County, in 1985 and 1989.

PCCD officials learned of the arrests after they appeared in stories in The
Patriot-News. They were not aware of a 1979 drunken-driving arrest that was
handled through a probationary program for first-time offenders.

He was arrested at 3:23 a.m. April 13, 2001, after his car struck a curb
outside a Burger King in Lemoyne and, police said, he repeatedly tried to
enter the restaurant through a back door, identifying himself as a police
officer.

Willoughby pleaded guilty to drunken driving in January and prosecutors
dropped other charges. He was sentenced to 2 days to 23 months in county
prison.

After his dismissal, Willoughby worked as a bartender at his mother's bar,
Weldon's Cafe. A person who answered the phone there yesterday said
Willoughby was not there and would not say if he still worked there.