Just about six months after accusing a former finance chief of embezzling in a public blog post, San Francisco Bay Area mental health nonprofit Caminar has now followed suit with a lawsuit.
In a suit filed Oct. 2 in San Mateo County Superior Court, Caminar officials said ex-CFO Richard Williams funneled tens of thousands of dollars to a “fictitious company” he created.
Williams, who was hired as CFO of Caminar in April 2024, created a “sham vendor profile” for the entity, which was called CA REsource Consulting and doing business as RP Professional Consulting, according to the suit. The profile for the company allegedly included a “falsified IRS form W-9, a falsified vendor contact named ‘Michael Davis,’ and banking information for Caminar to make payments,” the complaint stated.
“In reality, ‘Michael Davis’ and ‘CA REsource Consulting’ did not exist,” the complaint went on to say. “Caminar later learned that the physical address associated with the fictitious entity ‘CA REsource Consulting’ is the same address as an entity called Mission Holdings, LLC, an entity which is or was controlled by Williams.”
All told, Williams made payments to CA REsource Consulting that totaled just over $99,000, according to the suit. “All of these funds were paid to an account controlled by Williams, and Williams received the funds for his personal benefit,” the complaint said.
It wasn’t until March 2025 that the payments were brought to the attention of Caminar’s CEO. That’s when a new billing platform flagged a payment for further review by Caminar’s accounting department, the suit said.
When the CEO requested backup documentation about the payments to the consulting entity, Williams allegedly fabricated several, the suit claimed.
“For example, Williams fabricated a vendor contract, bearing the purported electronic signatures of ‘Michael Davis’ on behalf of ‘CA REsource Consulting,’ and also bearing the signature of Williams on behalf of Caminar,” the suit said. “Williams fabricated several emails and attachments in 2025, in order to create the appearance that Michael Davis and CA REsource Consulting had offered its services to Caminar in the summer of 2024, and that there had been an arm’s length negotiation of the services and contract.”
Williams resigned as CFO in September 2025, the suit said.
In addition to the funds he allegedly stole, Williams also caused “financial harm to Caminar in terms of investigation costs, lost productivity, disruption to operations, and turnover in key positions, including CFO,” the complaint said.
The suit accuses Williams of breach of fiduciary duty and fraudulent concealment. The complaint also names an unknown number of other defendants, referred to as “DOES 1-50.”
“Caminar will seek leave to amend this complaint to allege the true names and capacities of DOES 1-50, inclusive, when the same have been ascertained,” the suit said.
No lawyer has yet been listed for Williams in the case. Speaking to Bay Area News Group in April, around the time Caminar first publicly accused him in a blog post, Williams said he disputed the organization’s claims. At the time, he said he had performed consulting work at the request of Caminar’s CEO, and that he did not resign as a result of any investigations.
