Vancouver woman fails to appear in court in theft of nearly $30,000

A Vancouver woman is accused of stealing nearly $30,000 from a local nonprofit networking group for women in business.

Erika K. Laws, 43, is charged with first-degree theft in Clark County Superior Court. She was scheduled to appear on the charge Wednesday, but court records show she failed to appear. Judge Gregory Gonzales authorized a warrant for her arrest.

Laws was the executive director of Impactful Women NW, which achieved 501(c)(3) public charity exemption status in February 2016, according to a probable cause affidavit. Court records state a bank account for the nonprofit was created in April 2017, and before that, all of the charity’s finances were co-mingled with Laws’ personal bank account and that of her business.

After the nonprofit’s bank account was created and until April 2019, investigators said they found more than 70 transactions totaling more than $29,000 that Laws paid to herself or spent at casinos, restaurants and coffee shops, the affidavit says.

In 2018, Laws spent more than $12,000 of the charity’s money at ilani and other casinos, court records show. Previous reporting from The Columbian states Laws worked for three months as a dealer at ilani casino in 2018. The transactions were without the knowledge of the charity’s governing board, the affidavit states.

In April 2019, the organization’s board voted to remove Laws as the executive director and began dissolving the nonprofit.