WAILUKU — The executive director of the nonprofit Epileptic Foundation of Maui was found guilty yesterday of welfare fraud and theft for failing to report a $32,000 settlement he received while collecting public assistance benefits, the Maui News reported.

Glenn Mabson, 68, who runs the organization from his Kihei apartment, testified he donated the $32,539 settlement from a personal injury lawsuit to the foundation and asked his lawyer to deposit the money into a foundation bank account.

"I never actually saw the check," Mabson said last week. "This money was strictly to be used for the Epileptic Foundation of Maui."

But in closing arguments to 2nd Circuit Court jurors yesterday, Deputy Prosecutor Mark Simonds questioned whether Mabson really donated the money.

"It seems like a generous gesture, but what is it really?" Simonds said.

He said the paper trail of evidence showed that, after the settlement money was deposited on April 27, 2005, much of the amount went to Mabson and his mother, Ozella Mabson.

Nine days after the deposit, Glenn Mabson wrote a $20,032 check on the American Savings Bank account, using the money to buy four cashier's checks for $5,000 each that were made payable to himself, Simonds said. He said Mabson also wrote two other checks totaling $6,000 to his mother that were drawn on the account. Other checks paid for auto repairs and for electric, telephone and VISA bills, Simonds said.

Bank records showed Mabson cashed one $5,000 cashier's check on May 31, 2005, and another nearly a year later on May 1, 2006.

As executive director of the organization founded by him and his mother in 1996, Mabson was authorized to write checks on the account.

An epileptic who has suffered seizures for 36 years, Mabson testified he started the organization to provide education about the condition. He said he receives no salary and runs a 24-hour help hot line from the apartment he shares with his mother.

According to testimony during his trial, Mabson had been receiving public assistance since 1988. He met with state Department of Human Services case workers in March 2005 and April 2006 to reapply for benefits, both times acknowledging the requirement to report any additional funds he received within 30 days.

Had he reported receiving the lawsuit settlement, Mabson would have been ineligible for $4,600 in food stamps and medical assistance benefits he received from May 2005 to August 2006, according to the state. His benefits were terminated starting in December 2006.

Mabson said the settlement was from a 2002 lawsuit he brought after he broke his leg in two places when cases of soda and a shopping cart fell on him in the Costco parking lot in Kahului. He was pushing the cart after shopping for a foundation fundraiser when a wheel fell off the cart, Mabson said.

Asked about the status of the lawsuit in May 2006, a year after the settlement was paid, Mabson said "it had just been settled," said his DHS case worker Geraldine Kaeo. She testified that he reported he couldn't afford the legal costs so he had turned the case over to the Epileptic Foundation of Maui, which sued on his behalf.

Honolulu attorney Andre Wooten, who handled the settlement, testified that after legal fees were deducted from the settlement, he followed Mabson's directions to deposit a check payable to Mabson into the Epilepsy Foundation of Maui account.

That account was opened a couple of weeks before the settlement was deposited and was separate from another Epilepsy Foundation of Maui expense account that had been opened in 2001, Simonds said.

Mabson said he opened the new account because he wanted the settlement money to go toward creating an instruction video on first aid for epileptic seizures. He said he withdrew the money for the cashier's checks for the same purpose but the teller mistakenly made the checks payable to him instead of the foundation.

"This case is about the intentions of a man, Glenn Mabson, who wants so badly to educate our community about epilepsy," Deputy Public Defender Adriel Menor told the jury. "He wanted to make sure no person suffering from epilepsy would be misunderstood and mistreated.

"The Epileptic Foundation of Maui continues because of the passion, energy and utter devotion of a lot of volunteers in that organization but also Glenn Mabson. It's his full-time job. He devotes all his time and energy toward the Epileptic Foundation of Maui."

Menor said the $20,000 withdrawn from the account was used for the video production, which is continuing.

"Glenn Mabson never personally benefited," Menor said. "He was never enriched."

Menor argued that the prosecution hadn't shown that Mabson acted with "criminal intent."

But Simonds said the evidence showed Mabson had tried to hide the lawsuit settlement from the state.

"Mr. Mabson's not on trial because he has a passion or a cause. That's a very noble thing," Simonds said. "But it's not a good thing if you try to further your own cause through acts of deception, if you further that cause by cheating or trying to cheat the system."

After deliberating for a couple of hours yesterday, the jury found Mabson guilty as charged of welfare fraud and second-degree theft.

"We appreciate the jury's efforts and their close attention to the evidence to arrive at what we feel is the just verdict," Simonds said after the verdicts were announced.

Mabson is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 29 by Judge Richard Bissen, who presided over the trial.

According to court records, Mabson has prior convictions for second-degree assault, second-degree forgery and second-degree theft.

Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com. More Maui News stories are posted online at www.mauinews.com