Snook Foundation Sues Former Employees, Accountant Over Alleged $2.5 Million Pension Fraud

FOLEY, Ala. — The Snook Foundation lawsuit filings accuse three former employees and the charity’s longtime accountant of quietly creating and funding a lavish pension plan that cost the Foley-based philanthropy more than $2.5 million. The foundation, created by the late Gulf Telephone leader John McClure Snook, is one of Baldwin County’s best-known charitable givers.

The foundation has filed suits against former staff members Brenda Lee, her son Thomas E. Lee II and his wife, Heather Lee, and a separate suit against Foley accountant Steven Slaughter and his firm, Johnson, Slaughter, Driver & Northcutt, P.A. The complaints allege the Lees used forgery and deception to set up a pension plan for themselves without the trustees’ knowledge, then diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars a year into it.

The allegations have not been proven in court. An attorney for Thomas and Heather Lee said the claims are “strongly denied.” As of Thursday morning, court filings did not include a specific response from the defendants to the allegations.

Who is suing, and who is being sued

The foundation filed two suits in Baldwin County Circuit Court in early September: one against Brenda Lee, and another against Thomas and Heather Lee. On Wednesday, it filed a third suit in circuit court against Slaughter and his firm.

According to the complaints, Brenda Lee was hired as a staff member in 2010. She hired her son, Thomas Lee, in early 2011, and in 2019 the two hired Heather Lee. The suits say the Lees were the foundation’s only employees during the period in question, and that from 2019 to 2026 they “enjoyed substantial autonomy in managing the day-to-day affairs of the Foundation,” while reporting to a board of trustees that met infrequently.

Brenda Lee stepped down in 2024. The board fired Thomas and Heather Lee in April 2026.

The central allegation: an unauthorized pension plan

The heart of the case is a retirement plan the foundation says it never approved. According to the complaints, “Unbeknownst to the Board of Trustees, and taking advantage of the trust placed in them by the Board,” the Lees launched a personal pension plan effective Jan. 1, 2019.

“To establish a pension plan, the Lees had to have authorization from the Foundation,” the suit against Brenda Lee alleges. “No such authorization was ever requested or provided. Instead, Brenda Lee (or potentially Tom or Heather at her instruction) forged Mrs. Snook, the Chairman of the Board’s, signature on the plan documents on or around December 31, 2019.”

The complaints say the Lees then arranged annual six-figure contributions to the plan while hiding them from the board. One complaint describes how, “upon information and belief,” that was done:

“The Lees perpetrated their fraud by slipping checks payable to the ‘Snook Foundation Defined Benefit Plan’ in among the checks to be paid to grant applicants and presented them to Mrs. Snook for signature. The Lees knew that Mrs. Snook would sign the checks that she was presented by the Foundation’s CEO without question, and she in fact did so.”

The suit against Brenda Lee also alleges the foundation “discovered that Brenda Lee had forged Marjorie Snook’s signature on a second document purportedly authorizing Brenda Lee to withdraw over $1 million as a lump sum from the fraudulent benefit plan.”

The foundation alleges that “In addition to the more than $1 Million Brenda Lee diverted for her own benefit, Tom and Heather Lee diverted approximately $1,500,000 in additional funds to their own benefit.”

“More generous than any reasonable employer would offer”

The foundation’s first complaint says the plan’s terms “are more generous than any reasonable employer would offer.” According to the complaint, the plan had no vesting requirements, required no employee contributions, set a retirement age of 62 and included “a purported option to withdraw the full balance immediately upon retirement.”

The complaint also says Thomas and Heather Lee were paid just over $100,000 and $70,000 a year, respectively, “for what was, in reality, a part time job with limited responsibilities.”

The accountant’s alleged role

The newest suit targets Slaughter, who the foundation says served for many years as its accountant. It alleges:

“Despite having served for many years as the Foundation’s accountant, Slaughter nevertheless assisted these employees in establishing and funding the purported plan without the authorization or knowledge of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Thereafter, Slaughter, despite being called upon to give regular updates of the Foundation’s finances to the Board of Trustees, failed for years to disclose the creation and funding of the purported plan to the Foundation.”

The suit further alleges that Slaughter was Brenda Lee’s personal accountant and a friend of Thomas Lee, and that when she stepped down as executive director, he helped her withdraw more than $1 million from the pension fund “without the knowledge or authorization of the Foundation.”

Asked whether he would comment on the allegations, Slaughter said, “I would love to but I can’t.”

What the public tax filings show

Like other private foundations, the Snook Foundation files an annual information return with the IRS, known as a Form 990, and those returns are available to the public. They paint a picture that differs in some respects from the complaints.

The complaints say Brenda Lee moved to part-time status “in or around 2019.” The tax filings, however, show her receiving a six-figure salary as executive director through 2023. The 2024 filing lists her as a trustee and Thomas Lee as executive director. The complaint against Thomas and Heather Lee says he “held himself out to the public” as chief executive officer and she “held herself out” as chief financial officer; the foundation’s 2025 tax form lists them as executive director and grant director.

The Lees’ salaries and the payments into the pension plan were also reported on those public forms:

• 2022: Brenda Lee received $206,000 in direct compensation plus $296,000 in contributions to employee benefit plans and deferred compensation. Thomas Lee received $160,000 and $144,000, respectively.
• 2024: Thomas Lee received $173,000 in compensation and $256,000 in benefit contributions. Heather Lee received $95,000 in compensation and $125,000 in benefit contributions.

Whether the board knew or should have known about those payments, and what the trustees understood the figures to represent, are among the questions the courts may ultimately be asked to sort out.

A fight over which court hears the case

As of Thursday, the suit against Thomas and Heather Lee was in jurisdictional limbo. Their attorney, David P. Martin, filed a notice of removal seeking to move the case from Baldwin County Circuit Court to federal court. He argued that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the federal law known as ERISA that governs most private employee benefit plans, gives federal district courts jurisdiction over civil suits involving retirement plans.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine P. Nelson found that argument insufficient as filed, raising the possibility that the case could be sent back to circuit court. Nelson ordered the defendants to file an amended notice of removal by Oct. 28.

Removal is a common early step in civil litigation. A defendant can ask to move a case from state court to federal court when it involves a federal question or meets other requirements, and a federal judge decides whether the case belongs there. If it does not, the case is remanded to the state court where it was filed.

Responses from the parties

Martin declined to comment on pending litigation “other than to note that the claims are strongly denied.” Attempts to reach J. Willis Garrett III, an attorney representing Brenda Lee, were not immediately successful.

Jake Burchfield, an attorney for the foundation, also declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Attempts to reach the foundation and the Lees were unsuccessful. Mort Swain, the trustee who signed the complaint and is an attorney, will have no comment on questions related to the matter, according to a staff member at his office.

A Baldwin County legacy

The foundation is the philanthropic legacy of John McClure Snook, who ran the Gulf Telephone company until his death in 1994 at age 77. He established the foundation in 1972. His widow, Marjorie Younce Snook, now 91, took over as president of its board of trustees after his death.

Gulf Telephone was sold in 1999 for a reported $312 million. Thanks to a stock-sharing plan devised by John Snook, many employees received six- and seven-figure payouts from the sale, and the deal added tens of millions of dollars to the foundation.

Since then, the foundation has made grants to a wide range of civic organizations and causes in Baldwin County. According to its tax filings, it awarded grants of $1.2 million in 2020, $1 million in 2021, $1.9 million in 2022, $1 million in 2023 and $878,000 in 2024. The filings also show the foundation approved well over $2 million in future funding for Snook Christian Academy, a K-12 school in Foley, in 2022, with similar commitments approved in 2023 and 2024. The school also received several other six-figure grants in recent years.

The foundation says it has historically “provided funding for scholarships, promoted health care, contributed to civic organizations, enhanced school facilities and educational programs, and increased educational opportunities.” It says other spending has included help after natural disasters; support for fitness, health and medical centers; funding for libraries, historical organizations and after-school programs; and support for “local food banks, first responders, programs for veterans, and numerous other worthy agencies and organizations.”

The Snook name is on a YMCA in Foley and a library in Summerdale.

Still on solid footing

Public nonprofit records show the foundation’s holdings declined slowly but steadily from 2011 to 2024, from a little over $30 million to $23.5 million. Even with the losses alleged in the lawsuits, that suggests the foundation remains in a position to continue its grant-making.

What happens next

The cases are at an early stage. In the suit against Thomas and Heather Lee, the next deadline is Oct. 28, when the defendants must file an amended notice of removal in federal court; a federal judge will then decide whether the case stays there or returns to Baldwin County Circuit Court. The suits against Brenda Lee and against Slaughter and his firm are pending in circuit court, where the defendants will have an opportunity to file formal responses.

In civil cases, the foundation, as the plaintiff, carries the burden of proving its claims. The defendants are not facing criminal charges, and no court has found that any of them did anything wrong.