LEWISBURG, UNION COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A former marketing director is accused of taking over $800,000 from a visitors bureau through a fake marketing company scheme.
According to Pennsylvania State Police, 43-year-old Timothy Alan Dowhower is facing charges of embezzling money for over six years from his employer, the Susquehanna River Valley Visitors Bureau.
Police say they were contacted by the executive director of the visitors bureau after he went through business expenses and found a monthly charge for a sexually explicit website. The charge appeared on the company's credit card statements from February 2023 to April 2024.
The website listed was described as a nudist site that contained pictures of adults and children, investigators noted.
As stated in the affidavit, the executive director looked into the business's financial statements further and found Dowhower had paid his own marketing company around $150,000 every year since 2018.
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Detectives said Dowhower had suggested to his employers to hire Logical Destination, an outside company to handle online marketing. The executive director later learned that Dowhower owned Logical Destination and the company paid a total of $868,620 between 2018-2024, according to court documents.
State police reported that board members with the visitors bureau saw Logical Destination never completed any work, and there were no ads for Facebook, Instagram, or Google, which is where a percentage of the money was allocated.
Through further investigation, police say they found Dowhower made monthly purchases to Amazon, retail stores, restaurants, DoorDash, gym memberships, and checks written to Dowhower for cash with the bureau's money.
Dowhower has been charged with theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, criminal use of a communication facility, and unauthorized use of a credit card.
