SoCal nonprofit exec spent thousands in public money to lift breasts, tighten tummy, D.A. says
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- A former San Diego nonprofit executive stole more than $130,000 in overdose-prevention funds, spending it on plastic surgery and luxury trips, prosecutors said.
- Despite a prior conviction for embezzling $500,000, Amy Knox was allowed to oversee $5.8 million in grants from San Diego County, Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan said.
- Stephan questioned whether county oversight failures enabled the alleged embezzlement.
A former San Diego nonprofit executive has been accused of stealing more than $130,000 in public money intended to stop fentanyl overdose deaths and spending it on plastic surgeries, luxury trips to Hawaii and Disneyland, purebred dogs and more, authorities said.
At least $30,000 of the embezzled funds was spent on personal cosmetic procedures including breast implants and a lift, arm and thigh lifts and a tummy tuck, according to the San Diego district attorney’s office, which investigated the case.
Amy Knox, the former chief operating officer of Harm Reduction-SD, was charged with three felony counts of misappropriating public money and three felony counts of embezzlement. She pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.
The alleged scandal also raises concerns about oversight measures in place at the county of San Diego, which approved the contracts Knox managed, Dist. Atty. Summer Stephan said at a news conference Wednesday.
Knox was previously convicted of stealing more than $500,000 from a former employer but was allowed to oversee $5.8 million in grant funding provided by the county, Stephan said. Part of this funding came from settlements with corporations implicated in the opioid epidemic.
“This defendant had a history of stealing large amounts of money from her employer and violating their trust, yet she was still able to be in charge of millions of dollars in public funds,” Stephan said. “Checks and balances exist for a reason, yet there was no evidence of a background check.”
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged two real estate executives with defrauding California’s Homekey program, allegedly misappropriating millions meant for homeless housing.
Terra Lawson-Remer, chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, called the alleged thefts “a serious breach of trust.”
“I have called on our Chief Administrative Officer, Ebony Shelton, and County Counsel Damon Brown to review how this happened and if warranted to propose immediate structural safeguards to stop this from ever happening again,” she said in a statement.
The county’s director of communications, Tammy Glenn, said the county takes all reports of fraud seriously, noting that staff referred information to the district attorney’s office and continue to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
Knox served as Harm Reduction-SD’s chief operating officer from July 2022 to June 2025, during which time she controlled the nonprofit’s finances and contracts with county. The county granted the nonprofit an initial $4.2-million contract to distribute the overdose reversal medication Narcan in 2022, prosecutors said.
Concerns about the organization first emerged in January 2023 when a community member reported that its chief executive, Tara Stamos, was storing Narcan under a tarp in 100-degree weather, prosecutors said.
The county conducted an audit of Harm Reduction-SD in April 2023 that revealed “significant financial control weaknesses including insufficient bank reconciliations and a deficient general ledger,” prosecutors allege.
More than a third of California’s 77 county fairs have been plagued by an array of problems in the last decade.
The county then learned of Knox’s previous conviction but went on to award the nonprofit a second contract in August 2024, Stephan said. That contract was intended to test for the presence of fentanyl in street drugs.
“It’s troubling that after professional county employees and staff raised clear concerns, that county officials ran a background check, discovered the embezzlement, discovered that it was in an amount of $500,000 and still provided a second contract,” said Stephan.
The county terminated its contracts with Harm Reduction-SD in June 2025 after Stamos reported suspicious payments made by Knox, Stephan said.
In June 2025, the San Diego Union Tribune asked the county to explain why the nonprofit’s contracts were suddenly canceled. At the time, a county spokesperson declined to comment on whether any money had been misspent, stating only that the decision was made “without stating a specific breach of contract by the other party.”
Of the $5.8 million in grant funding approved by the county, $3.68 million has already been paid, Stephan said. “We cannot, beyond a reasonable doubt at this time, know fully how much of those millions were compromised by theft,” she said.
The state has sued a Long Beach food bank, accusing its leaders of diverting more than $11 million in state funds into their own pockets.
Prosecutors allege that Knox used Harm Reduction-SD’s checking account to pay more than $90,000 in credit card payments for thousands of personal items and services from January 2024 to May 2025. From October 2023 to May 2025, she used more than $10,000 in public funds to pay utility bills on two of her residential properties, prosecutors allege.
Stephan said her office is continuing to investigate suspected malfeasance of county funds and encourages employees to report concerns. Glenn also urged people to report concerns about employees or contractors to the county’s ethics hotline.
“The County will continue to examine and strengthen processes and reinforce accountability to ensure transparency and public trust,” Glenn said.
Stephan said she was alarmed by some of the discoveries the district attorney’s office made when speaking to county staff as part of its investigation into Knox’s alleged embezzlement.
“Our team sensed fear and trepidation when we were conducting our investigation, fear about their jobs for cooperating with the investigation,” she said, noting that this is “the kind of thing that as a prosecutor has my spidey antenna up.”
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