Jack Olson spent decades raising money for police. He now awaits trial over his work in Omaha (2024)

Jack Olson, a 67-year-old Iowa man, is no stranger to police.

Twice convicted of driving under the influence in 2002 and 2013, Olson spent a week in jail and paid about $2,000 in fines across the two convictions. In 2017, a search warrant at Olson’s Iowa home recovered nearly 2 pounds of marijuana along with four cellphones, a money counter and eight firearms. He was charged with two felonies in connection with the search warrant — but never convicted. The case has since disappeared from Iowa’s court system.

Other aspects of Olson’s relationship with police were more fruitful: For nearly 30 years, he worked as a professional fundraiser for law enforcement nonprofits and other police organizations from Florida to Missouri to Nebraska. The work netted Olson and his companies more than a million dollars in professional fundraising fees as he organized police softball tournaments and phone solicitation campaigns. Federal tax records and news archives show Olson regularly kept 70% to 80% of the money he raised for the organizations.

Olson is now awaiting trial on federal felony charges of tax evasion, wire fraud and conspiracy in relation to his fundraising activities for Omaha’s Latino Peace Officers Association (LPOA) after he was indicted in April 2023. He is accused of keeping between 65% and 80% of gross donations to the organization without disclosing that cut to donors or the LPOA board.

Federal prosecutors allege Olson orchestrated the scheme with the assistance of Richard Gonzalez, a 25-year veteran of the Omaha Police Department who purported to be an LPOA board member, and Johnny Palermo, an OPD officer who was the president of the LPOA.

Olson’s attorney, federal public defender Korey Reiman, has disputed the allegation. Reiman said in court that Olson had written contracts with LPOA and other organizations that specified the high cut of donations he took. Olson, who faces additional counts of tax evasion in a superseding indictment filed Tuesday, is scheduled to go to trial in September.

Both Palermo and Gonzalez pleaded guilty earlier this year to wire fraud conspiracy and were sentenced to prison in connection to the fundraising activities.

Bacon Ball Sports has worked with Omaha police groups for years

Tax returns show two other police nonprofits — the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1 and the Omaha Police Officers Association — had longstanding relationships with Olson through his company, Bacon Ball Sports Promotions.

The clearest paper trail exists for Olson’s relationship with LPOA. Between 2020 and 2021, Olson raised about $349,300 for the LPOA through tele-fundraising and kept $286,900 of the donated money, according to tax returns. The LPOA retained just over $62,000. Federal prosecutors further alleged in a superseding indictment last week that Olson made an additional $117,800 from LPOA donations in 2018 and 2019.

Tracing the money for the FOP Lodge 1 and the OPOA using publicly disclosed IRS data is more difficult.

From 2011 to 2019, Bacon Ball was listed as a professional fundraiser on the FOP’s tax returns. Bacon Ball raised $459,689 for the FOP and kept $371,572 of the donations. The FOP retained just over $88,000.

From 2010 to 2012, Bacon Ball was listed as a professional fundraiser for the OPOA, and records indicate Bacon Ball raised $309,900 over the three-year period and was paid $268,700 while OPOA retained just $41,200.

Beginning in 2013, the OPOA stopped listing Bacon Ball as a professional fundraiser and began listing it as a fundraising event. The organization reported no professional fundraising fees on its tax returns from 2013 to 2019, though it continued to hold Bacon Ball tournaments, according to the documents.

John Francavilla, the former president of FOP Lodge 1, said FOP Lodge 1 primarily worked with an employee of Olson’s to coordinate the tournaments, not with Olson himself. After the 2017 drug charges against Olson, the employee spun off his own fundraising company and continued coordinating police softball tournaments.

That tracks with what federal prosecutors allege in Olson’s original indictment from 2023: That Gonzalez brought Olson to LPOA after Olson was “terminated for cause from his previous employment as a solicitor or fundraiser due to an arrest involving drugs.”

As for the high cut of donation money kept by fundraisers, Francavilla said it’s the industry standard. He also said that money was used to pay for costs associated with the fundraising efforts, like employee salaries and call centers.

“It’s not unusual,” he said. “It can be a dirty business.”

Bacon Ball fundraisers start in Iowa, spread across the country

According to baconballusa.com, a now-defunct webpage, Bacon Ball began in Iowa in 1994. That same year, “Bacon Ball Productions, Inc.” was registered in Iowa as a corporation. Olson’s then-wife was listed as the agent.

A 2008 version of the Bacon Ball website provides an overview of the organization’s history and mission.

“Bacon Ball is a series of law enforcement slow pitch softball tournaments now in its 14th season,” the homepage reads. “We began in 1994, with our first tournament being played in Sioux City, Iowa. Today we hold tournaments in Florida, Nevada, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa.”

“The real kicker is we are able to raise a minimum net profit of $5,000 for the host FOP, Police Union, Sheriff’s Association or Police Athletic League. With Bacon Ball, Law Enforcement comes out, like it should, on top.”

Francavilla said his understanding was that the tournaments raised money through Olson and that his employees contacted businesses to solicit advertisem*nts or sponsorships on promotional materials for the softball tournaments.

From 1994 until the early 2000s, Bacon Ball tournaments primarily took place in Iowa. Newspaper clippings show Olson fundraised for the Iowa Association of Chiefs of Police and Peace Officers, drawing participation from police departments and sheriff’s offices in Des Moines, Sioux City, Waterloo and Cedar Rapids.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register in 2001, Olson, identified as the “tournament coordinator,” said the event was the biggest annual fundraiser for the Iowa association, netting about $30,000 each year.

Then the tournaments began to spread nationwide.

According to Omaha World-Herald archives, the first Bacon Ball tournament in Nebraska was held in August 2002 to benefit the Omaha Police Officers Association. The unnamed organizers told reporters at the time that they hoped to make the tournament an annual event.

By 2004, the tournaments had made their way to Florida, and by 2008, they expanded to Nevada, New York and Missouri, according to the baconballusa.com website.

Though Olson wasn’t listed on the defunct website as a member of the board of directors, he was listed as the point of contact for tournaments in Chicago, Des Moines, Omaha and West Palm Beach, Florida, as well as a national championship in Kansas City. Tournaments in Las Vegas and California appear to have been organized and run by different people.

Issues arose as Olson raised money in Iowa

Though Olson’s time coordinating Bacon Ball tournaments in Nebraska was free of public scandal until his indictment last year, that wasn’t the case elsewhere.

In the early 2000s, Olson was raising money via Bacon Ball tournaments for two organizations in Iowa: The Des Moines Police Burial and Protective Association, and the Iowa Peace Officers Association (IPOA). But he didn’t register with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which fundraisers are required to do under state law.

Nebraska is one of eight states that does not require fundraisers to register with the state or submit disclosure statements.

A Des Moines Register article from 2005 shows that Olson registered Bacon Ball for the first time that year — more than a decade after he began his fundraising career. In documents he filed with the state, Olson said he planned to keep 75% of the $140,000 raised for the Des Moines Police Burial and Protective Association and 80% of the $150,000 raised for the IPOA.

That would mean Olson kept $225,000 of the $290,000 he raised in 2005 — a similar cut to that he is accused of taking while fundraising in Omaha.

In a newsletter from late 2010, the IPOA president wrote that the organization “discontinued” its relationship with Olson and Bacon Ball “because of the negative publicity cast on our fundraising efforts by the Attorney General’s Office last fall.”

“We will be watching our bottom line very closely in the coming months,” the newsletter said.

In spring 2011, another newsletter expanded on the end of the relationship between Olson and the IPOA.

“We have a long history of fundraising together in what is commonly known across the country as Bacon Ball,” IPOA treasurer Terry Dehmlow wrote. “This collaboration with Jack Olson began years ago and has spread Bacon Ball coast to coast.”

“Jack has elected to sever his relationship with us, and has chosen to continue fundraising with the Bacon Ball events by partnering with the Des Moines Police Officers Association.”

The “negative publicity” referenced in the newsletter may be related to a 2009 crackdown on fundraisers led by former Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. Tele-fundraising attracted criticism after Miller’s office filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against a different company purporting to raise money for police unions and other nonprofits. Agents of that company were accused of taking 80% to 90% of donations for themselves while misleading donors about the percentage that would go to charity.

IPOA tax documents show the organization spent $512,400 on professional fundraising fees from 2005 to 2008, though it does not specify who received the fees. Dehmlow, who still serves as the IPOA treasurer, declined to comment on the organization’s relationship with Olson.

Arrested in 2017; indicted in 2023

Property and court records show that Olson moved around within Iowa frequently throughout the early 2000s — living in Urbandale, Clive, Grimes and Johnston. In 2016, he purchased a home in Des Moines. It was at this home that the Des Moines Police Department executed a search warrant in 2017.

According to the affidavit, the Mid Iowa Narcotic Task Force had allegedly received at least three tips about Olson — two in 2014 related to an alleged marijuana-growing operation in Grimes and one in 2017, in which someone reported seeing multiple drug syringes and marijuana pipes in plain view at the Des Moines home.

When the search warrant was executed in July 2017, officers said they recovered small quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, Dilaudid, oxycodone, hydrocodone, ecstasy and psilocybin mushrooms. They also allegedly found approximately 889 grams, or almost two pounds, of marijuana in heat-sealed bags. Four cell phones and eight firearms were also recovered from the home, along with a money counter, heat sealer machine and a “large quantity” of vacuum-sealed bags.

Olson was charged with possession of a controlled substance (ecstasy), failure to affix a drug tax stamp and controlled substance violation (hydrocodone). Two of those charges were felonies. Court records show that Olson was in court for his initial appearance.

A month after his arrest, prosecutors filed a motion to consolidate the two cases against Olson under a single case number. According to a spokesperson for the Polk County Attorney’s Office, the consolidated case was filed — but no record exists of how the case was disposed of. It doesn’t appear that Olson was convicted or sentenced on any charges related to his 2017 arrest.

“The fact that it no longer exists suggests that the charge was expunged,” Lynn Hicks, a public information officer for the attorney’s office, said in an email.

Then came Olson’s federal indictment. According to prosecutors, Olson used the false identity “Cody Jones” while soliciting donations for LPOA. In these solicitations, he and others promised “every penny” would go to helping “underprivileged children.”

“This is not just a big cop party, we do this so volunteer Omaha police officers can help at risk and disadvantaged youth,” Olson told potential donors, according to the indictment.

But the indictment alleges at least some of the money was used to entertain Olson and others — including more than $46,000 at a local bar and a trip to Las Vegas. And on Tuesday, in a superseding indictment, prosecutors further alleged Olson failed to pay taxes on more than $390,000 of taxable income he received over three years from his cut of the LPOA donations.

While Olson’s alleged co-conspirators opted to plead guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in plea deals with the government, Olson has indicated his intent to take the case to trial. His trial date, originally slated for June, has been pushed back to September in light of the new charges.

“There are legitimate issues to be litigated in this matter,” Reiman, Olson’s attorney, wrote in a legal brief last year.