BEAUMONT, Texas — The Beaumont business community remains rattled weeks after Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce former Finance Director Sidnee Lewis was arrested.
Lewis is accused of stealing $83,000 from the chamber.
In the midst of this shake-up, President and CEO Steve Ahlenius resigned citing health issues.
On September 6, 12News was sent an anonymous letter asking us to look into thousands of dollars in missing funds.
Beaumont Police later dropped a bombshell on September 13, charging Lewis with theft which she was allegedly using to pay personal bills.
"Just follow the chain of command at the chamber and they knew about what was going on. Because it's kind of hard for one person to do that much damage alone or whatever. I never saw her doing anything personally," said Ronald Noah.
Noah served as the chamber's Director of Membership and Retention from November 2021 through March 2024. He sat down with 12News to break down how money was handled.
"The Director of Finance, the CEO, President, and the Director of Sponsorships. You always had two people to three people sign off on the transfer of money. We started having more than one person count money to keep everyone honest," said Noah.
Noah says each director had a credit card that they were given to pay for lunches and office supplies. He says that former CEO and President Steve Ahlenius made them sign a document stating that they could not hand out their credit card to anyone else.
Then he says Ahlenius forced him to resign after he refused to hand over his chamber credit card to Sidnee Lewis.
"Our CEO president, we signed at this meeting that we couldn't give our credit card out. I was forced to sign a letter stated that I had to resign. He would give me 30 days of pay, insurance, and a positive letter of recommendation," said Noah.
Noah said since he's left he has struggled to find work.
"They come back and tell me someone at the chamber talked bad about me. Like I did something wrong, I guess that person didn't like me because I stood up for myself," said Noah.
Noah believes that the anonymous letter that 12News received came from someone associated with the chamber.
"You should have spoken out a long time ago because right is right, wrong is wrong," said Noah.
12News did reach out to another director who currently works at the chamber, but has yet to get a response. The chamber also has not commented regarding the arrest of Lewis.