Former Listen executive convicted of fraud

On July 24, former Listen Community Services Executive Director Kyle Fisher was sentenced to 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release for misappropriating nearly $240,000 from the charity, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire.

Fisher, who was initially indicted in May 2023 on four counts of telecommunications fraud, he pleaded guilty to one count of telecommunications fraud in February 2024, according to a news release. Fisher was found guilty of defrauding the charity’s funds for 19 months during his tenure as executive director, which ran from 2016 to 2022.

U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro also ordered Fisher to pay Listen $239,297.09 in restitution, according to court documents. Within 30 days of the hearing, Fisher must liquidate his retirement account and pay $25,000 to the charity, followed by monthly payments of $500.

Fisher was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and charged by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Chen. According to Chen, the prosecution asked for a sentence of 26 months in prison, while the defense asked for a sentence of 12 months and one day.

Barbadoro will allow Fisher to “self-report to prison” by 2 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2024, according to court documents. The court recommended that he be housed at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner, a medium-security federal prison north of Raleigh, North Carolina.

“(Fisher) currently lives in Holly Springs, North Carolina, and has asked a judge to recommend sending him to a prison near his home,” Chen said. “After he gets out of prison, he will be supervised by the Bureau of Prohibition for three years to make sure he stays out of trouble.”

In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Listen board secretary Dick Green ’75 said the charity is “grateful” to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI investigative teams for their “diligence.” He explained that Listen officials first reported Fisher after discovering “unusual financial activity.”

“We quickly conducted an investigation, reported these findings to authorities, and took steps to recover the funds,” Green wrote. “After learning how Fisher had betrayed his position of trust and authority to bypass our financial controls, we made adjustments to further strengthen them.”

According to a press release, Fisher used the embezzled money primarily to gamble at a casino in Massachusetts.

In a court document, Fisher’s attorney, Charles J. Keefe, wrote that Fisher “suffers from bipolar II disorder” and is a “serious gambler” who used stolen funds to “feed his addiction.”

Chen said white-collar fraud cases are “usually very well documented” and added that this case was “no exception.”

“The key evidence was getting the personal bank records of both Listen and Fisher,” Chen said. “Also the casino records — those were important because we could cross-reference all the money Listen took with his casino visits and how much he played each week.”

Chen said Listen’s PayPal records are also important evidence because Fisher used the service to extort money for his own personal needs.

During his sentencing hearing on July 24, Green read a victim impact statement to the court. Green — who previously served as interim director of the charity from mid-September 2022 to mid-March 2023 — developed the statement with “input from Listen stakeholders, including staff, volunteers, board members, donors, partners, and members of the community,” according to a copy of the statement.

In a statement, Green said Listen is “vital” to members of the Upper Valley community in need. According to United States Attorney for the District of New Hampshire Jane Young, the charity has provided a “safety net” — including food, housing and educational services — to members of the Upper Valley community for more than 50 years. In 2023, the charity recorded 11,033 visits to its food pantry and 32,789 meals served at its community soup kitchen, Green wrote in an impact statement.

According to the statement, in 2023, Listen also helped 1,566 people pay for heating fuel or electricity, helped 732 people find housing, prevented 361 evictions, gave 466 children and seniors in the community holiday baskets — full of winter clothes and groceries — and donated more than $186,000 in clothing and household items to neighbors in need.

“Literally… Fisher’s crimes have deprived our neighbors who needed assistance of food, clothing, fuel for heating, electricity, shelter and so much more,” the agency said in a victim impact statement.

According to Young, in addition to the direct financial losses it suffered as a result of Fisher’s fraud, Listen was forced to spend nearly $78,000 on “audit, legal and other costs.”

Fisher’s victim impact statement described the emotional and reputational impact of his actions, saying the “greatest harm” to the Listen community was the “emotional suffering” caused by Fisher’s fraud.

“There is no doubt that Kyle Fisher’s actions have damaged Listen’s 52-year-long reputation, and it will take time for us to regain the trust of all members of our community,” Green said in a statement.

In a statement emailed to The Dartmouth, Kara Davis ’26 wrote that Listen is “the premier place” where she strives to “shop ethically in the Upper Valley.”

“I felt good about going there because I believed the funds would go to help the surrounding communities,” Davis wrote. “Hearing about this case… definitely makes me feel less comfortable going there now.”

According to his sentencing memo, Fisher “has accepted full responsibility” for his crime, feels “tremendous remorse” for violating the trust of his community and is “working towards recovery and rehabilitation.”

“He’s a hardworking, loving man who wants to make things right,” Keefe wrote. “…Kyle could be seen as evil, greedy, or heartless for taking money from such an organization, but the above discussion (of Fisher’s struggles with bipolar disorder and gambling addiction) hopefully puts into perspective the fact that otherwise good people can do bad things.”