Former Minneapolis Chamber CEO pleads guilty to mail fraud in embezzlement case

The former CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce pleaded guilty Monday to one count of mail fraud in U.S. District Court in St. Paul in connection with an elaborate scheme involving the embezzlement of over $200,000.

As a result, Jonathan Weinhagen, 42, faces between 27 and 33 months in prison, a fine between $10,000 and $95,000 and restitution payments of $213,200.

Federal prosecutors said Weinhagen stole over $200,000 from the Minneapolis chamber over five years, which hobbled the organization financially.

In October, federal prosecutors charged him with five counts of fraud in a case featuring a fictional company, a fake obituary and the alleged looting of a $30,000 chamber donation to a Crime Stoppers reward fund.

In entering the plea in front of U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Brasel, Weinhagen acknowledged all of the indictment’s allegations. He did not say anything in court about his motivations and declined to comment to reporters after the hearing.

The mail fraud count was in connection with his theft of the $30,000 that had been directed to Crime Stoppers.

Weinhagen will have a sentencing hearing at a later date.

Weinhagen also will pay $50,000 to one company and $10,000 to another, both unnamed in the indictment and plea agreement. Weinhagen, according to courtroom testimony on Monday, had solicited the money for All of Mpls, a political fund for moderate DFL candidates for city offices, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. The chamber has been a major financial backer of the group.

Instead, Weinhagen used the money to pay down a credit line he had taken in the chamber’s name but used for personal expenses.

Regarding the Crime Stoppers allegation, prosecutors say the chamber donated $30,000 toward a reward fund for tips on solving three 2021 shootings — two of them fatal — of children in north Minneapolis.

In 2022, with the reward money still unclaimed, Weinhagen allegedly asked Crime Stoppers for the $30,000 back. He requested the refund check be sent to his home address in Shoreview, claiming it was the chamber’s new address. Prosecutors say he used the cash for personal expenses.

Hired to run the Minneapolis chamber in 2016 at age 33, Weinhagen abruptly resigned in June 2024 amid an internal investigation of financial abnormalities. The investigation found that about $290,000 in chamber money had disappeared during Weinhagen’s tenure.

The resulting financial stress helped spur merger talks earlier this year between the Minneapolis and St. Paul chambers.

Prosecutors say Weinhagen stole more than $200,000 from the chamber using a fake consulting company, Synergy Partners, which he created using the alias “James Sullivan.”

When the chamber caught on, Weinhagen tried to “cover his tracks” by saying Synergy no longer existed and Sullivan had died, prosecutors claim. Weinhagen allegedly wrote a fake obituary for Sullivan and posted it to Legacy.com in 2024.

The indictment said Weinhagen also used a Minneapolis chamber credit card for personal expenses, including to fly himself and his family first class to Hawaii for an oceanfront hotel stay.

And, after leaving the chamber in 2025, Weinhagen tried to fraudulently obtain a $54,661 loan from SoFi Bank by falsely claiming he worked for a Minnesota restaurant company and earned a $425,000 salary.

Since Weinhagen’s departure, the Minneapolis chamber has worked to improve its internal financial oversight, Logan said in an interview. “We have instituted governance and control changes so that this never happens again.”

Those include a “rigorous review” of credit card transactions and accounts payable, with any transaction over $5,000 now requiring multiple approvals, Logan said.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul regional chambers are “slowly working towards an architecture for a merger,” though any formal approval of such a move would be in late 2026 or 2027, Logan said.

Weinhagen’s departure from the chamber and his ensuing indictment has launched other inquiries by public organizations.

Last month, the Metropolitan Council said its auditors found a “high risk” that a subsidiary of the Minneapolis chamber misused federal grants earmarked for transit.

The Mounds View public school district last month asked its auditing firm to review the district’s finances during Weinhagen’s 11-year tenure on its school board.