Fraud trial of Jordan Davis, son of convicted CEO, set to go to jurors

Jurors on Tuesday are expected to start deciding whether Jordan Davis stole $140,000 from a local nonprofit or was brought to federal court to answer for the sins of his father, former longtime Community Action of Minneapolis CEO Bill Davis.

The two were set to stand trial together before Bill Davis pleaded guilty on June 16 to 16 counts of theft and fraud for misspending at least $800,000 between 2011 and 2013 on unauthorized expenses on a car, vacations with girlfriends and golf outings. Both sides delivered closing remarks Monday in a Minneapolis federal courtroom in Jordan Davis' fraud trial.

Community Action set up a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop to provide job training for at-risk youth and hired Jordan Davis to manage it, a post he held until he became a full-time community service officer for the Minneapolis Police Department in 2006. He continued to receive paychecks from Community Action — a nonprofit intended to provide energy and heating assistance to low-income residents — for work that prosecutors say he didn't perform through 2010.

"[It was] money he was taking from kids who maybe had few opportunities to obtain job skills," Assistant U.S. Attorney Amber Brennan told jurors Monday. "That's the money Jordan Davis felt he needed, that he was entitled to."

Davis is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting mail fraud and one count of conspiring with his father to steal from a program that receives federal funding. At his plea hearing earlier in June, Bill Davis said he arranged for the nonprofit to pay his son a "consultant's fee" and told U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz that it was his idea to continue his son's payments.

Frederic Bruno, Davis' attorney, described him as a "worker bee" whose wife had to accompany him on Ben & Jerry's catering gigs if she wanted to spend time with him between his police and nonprofit work. Bruno also asked jurors not to lump Jordan Davis together with the actions of his father.

"We all know Bill Davis is a bully and probably a bad guy," Bruno said. "They're trying to tar this man with the same brush. Don't fall for it."

"He knew that fraud was happening to get these checks to him," Brennan said. "He encouraged this crime, he facilitated this crime. He caused it."

Bruno said Bill Davis planned to phase out his son at the Ben & Jerry's once a full-time manager could be hired.

At trial, Bruno called a University of Minnesota business and law professor, Paul Vaaler, to testify that it was standard for businesses to retain consultants or on-call employees who may not actually end up providing services.

From 2006 to 2010, Bruno said, Davis was on-call around the clock and was considered an "IT wizard" for his expertise with the store's security system, cash machine and heating and cooling. Davis' pay also remained the same all 10 years with no benefits.

"No perks whatsoever except scoops of ice cream," Bruno said.

Bill Davis shut the Ben & Jerry's location down in April 2011. Nine months later, Bill Davis and a girlfriend traveled to the Ben & Jerry's annual conference in the Bahamas, using $4,000 in Community Action funds for the trip.

Stephen Montemayor • 612-673-1755