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An alleged fraudster stole nearly $220,000 from a Minnesota suicide prevention nonprofit he ran with his in-laws since its founding — just months after his late brother-in-law took his own life.
Ryan Gary Obermoller, 46, is accused of bilking the nonprofit over the course of seven years, while he served as the executive director and treasurer of Dylan’s Hope Foundation, a suicide prevention organization founded in 2013 by his in-laws in the wake of his brother-in-law’s tragic death.
Dylan Aaseby, 17, died by suicide on Feb. 7, 2013, according to his obituary. He was a high school junior at the time.
Administrators flagged erroneous reported earnings from an annual charity golf tournament in 2024, which led authorities with the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office right to Obermoller, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Obermoller claimed the tourney raised $51,500, even though the nonprofit’s reported earnings for that entire fiscal year were just $56,700, according to ProPublica.
While reviewing the foundation’s bank account, administrators found that Obermoller had written a $22,000 check to himself. And when pressed, he allegedly admitted to additional thefts, including one for more than $40,000, the complaint said.
In all, investigators estimated he embezzled at least $219,173 — and had returned just $30,000.
Obermoller is married to Dylan’s Aaseby’s older sister, Jenny, and helped her grieving family run the nonprofit for over a decade. He was trusted to manage the finances, since he had an extensive background in accounting, Jenny told the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Between 2013 and 2024 — with an unreported earnings void between 2015 and 2018 — the nonprofit earned roughly $258,100 in revenue and expensed around $240,030, ProPublica reported.
Jenny took over her estranged husband’s duties when the allegations broke, according to the nonprofit’s leadership website.
Britt Aaseby, Obermoller’s father-in-law, said their mission to create “open lines of communication between young people and adults” to prevent tragedies like his son’s, is in jeopardy because their treasurer “put himself ahead of kids.”
“He’s taken a tragedy and tried to make it his game,” Britt Aaseby said.
“[Accounting] is what he did for a living. How could you second-guess that?”
The family still has no idea what Obermoller did with the stolen funds, they told the outlet.
“From what he told me, he wanted to give us the life that he wanted us to have. He never has said what he did with it otherwise,” Jenny said.
Obermoller was charged with two felony counts of theft on Feb. 17. He is due back in court on April 8.
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