Ed Moore, president of the Pigeon Community Development Club, allegedly invested the donated money in an Internet scam that promised big payouts. The payouts never materialized, however, and Moore lost the club's money, according to the charges.

It'll be impossible to find out who has the money, said Waynesville Detective Crystal Shuler. The people who run these scams are very hard to track.

Moore allegedly gave the scam artists $15,000 on the assumption it would be returned several times over if he helped them transfer money into the country, a set-up similar to the notorious Nigerian email scam. The scammers eventually sent Moore a check for $198,000. Moore was supposed to cash the check, keep a percentage for himself, and send the scam artists the rest, according to Shuler.

But the check was a fraud. Several blank checks had been stolen from a lumber company in Illinois by the scammers and made out to Moore and several other people across the country who had also been drawn into the scam.

Moore left the check in the night deposit box at Carolina First Bank, accompanied by a letter attempting to explain to tellers how he had ended up with a check of that magnitude from an Illinois lumber company. In the letter, Moore told tellers the money was from selling stock. He also vouched that the check was good.

We have checked for the authenticity of this document and were quite relieved to find that it is good, Moore wrote the tellers.

However, the tellers were suspicious and called police when they found the deposit.

In addition to embezzlement charges for the $15,000, Moore was charged with fraud for attempting to pass off a $198,000 check he knew was no good, witnessed by the lie Moore fabricated about its origin, Shuler said.

At a certain point, it appears he started particpating, Shuler said of the scheme.

While Moore's check was stopped, some like it were cashed in other parts of the country unbeknownst to the lumber company, which did not realize blank checks had been stolen, Shuler said.

When police got the call from the bank about Moore's large attempted deposit, they suspect a connection to the missing grant money. Members of the Waynesville Kiwanis Club had been pressuring Moore about the whereabouts of the playground equipment for some time and had shared concerns with the detectives over the whereabouts of their donation money, Shuler said.

If found guilty, Moore could face a minimum sentence of seven and a half years, even with no prior criminal record.

Moore is a long-time employee of Blue Ridge Paper Products and a respected leader in the community. Those who know Moore have been shocked by the news. Moore ran for the Waynesville town board in 2003. He has been outspoken on race issues, calling for equal treatment and inclusion of Waynesville's black community. Moore has been a champion of the Pigeon Community Development Club, which is centered around Waynes-ville's historically black community. He has also been vital in gaining recognition for needs in the minority community, including the acquisition of the former all-black school building for a community center.

The Waynesville Kiwanis Club awarded the $15,000 to the Pigeon Community Club in 2003 to build a playground at the new community center. But instead of depositing it in the club's checking account, Moore deposited it in a personal checking account, according to a fellow club member Lee Bouknight.

Bouknight said the Pigeon Community Development Club has terminated its relationship with Moore.

He is completely disassociated from us. We are going to pick up the pieces and move on, Bouknight said. It is such a shame, but me and others had no way of knowing.

Bouknight said the club never saw the money that Moore deposited into the separate account. Bouknight said he and other club members have been pressing Moore for several months about the status of the playground project.

He said it was in a special account earmarked for playground equipment and that he was the sole administrator for it, Bouknight said. He kept saying he was going to buy the equipment. He put it off and put it off and put it off and here we are. We've been trying to get to the bottom of it.

Bouknight said he and other club members are very distressed about Moore's behavior and apologized to the community for the trouble he caused.

He was an outstanding member of the community Ñ or so we thought, Bouknight said. Bouknight said the Pigeon Community Club wants to continue doing what it can to help the community.