NELSONVILLE, Ohio — In response to its former executive director’s defamation lawsuit, the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program countersued Jen Seifert this week, alleging she misused nearly $1 million in organization funds.
The countersuit, filed Aug. 19 in the Athens County Court of Common Pleas, says that before her July 2024 termination, Seifert shirked the organization’s internal controls to make two major transactions without the nonprofit board’s approval.
In one case, Seifert directed the organization to spend over $700,000 on a 3D printer “without either an executed licensing agreement or sale agreement,” the countersuit says. SAOP was ultimately unable to either obtain the printer or get its money back.
In a separate incident, Seifert “unilaterally awarded $250,000 that was ineligibly spent as part of a profitable real estate transaction by persons known to Seifert,” says the countersuit. The property was later purchased by a group that the countersuit alleges has ties to Seifert.
SAOP’s policies require board approval for expenditures over $5,000 and contracts over $150,000, according to materials included in SAOP’s countersuit. However, the board was “kept in the dark regarding both of these two expenditures,” the countersuit says.
The countersuit seeks damages from Seifert for her alleged “breaches of fiduciary duty and fraudulent concealment.” SAOP demands that she pay back the organization for the cost of the transactions and pay punitive damages, too.
The countersuit says Seifert’s actions “damaged SAOP’s reputation as a responsible steward of public and charitable funds.”
SAOP frames its countersuit as a direct response to the defamation suit Seifert brought against the organization in June.
“Seifert has brought her actions while Executive Director of SAOP directly to the courthouse steps,” the introduction to SAOP’s lawsuit reads. “As such, some of Seifert’s actions will now be laid bare in this public forum.”
Seifert alleges in her lawsuit that SAOP, its board and its contractor cost her and her consulting company over $4 million by spreading false statements about her and interfering with her business relationships.
She specifically cited what she described as false statements by former SAOP contractor Zach Reizes about a criminal investigation into her conduct. She also said SAOP threatened to pull funds away from organizations that worked with Seifert’s consulting business.
Both SAOP — and, as of an Aug. 20 court filing, Reizes — have denied the allegations against them. SAOP and Reizes both said in their answers to Seifert’s suit that any harm Seifert suffered was at least partially caused by her own actions.
Seifert’s July 2024 termination from SAOP followed a period of internal upheaval at SAOP related to the organization’s publicly funded transformation to focus more on housing, including 3D printing construction technologies.
Seifert declined to comment for this story via a communications consultant. SAOP Executive Director Madison Trace also declined to comment.
A 3D printer payment into the ether
Apparently to advance SAOP’s 3D-printing initiatives, Seifert had discussions with Alquist 3D in late 2023 and early 2024 about SAOP purchasing one of the company’s printers, SAOP’s suit says.
Alquist 3D-prints homes and is responsible for the largest 3D printed commercial structure in the United States. Alquist founder Zachary Mannheimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
In February 2024, Alquist sent SAOP a draft license agreement and sale agreement, along with an invoice for $705,700. Despite discussion on the draft agreements, no one at SAOP signed either of the documents, the countersuit alleges. However, SAOP sent money for the printer anyway.
Instead of using its usual billing process, the lawsuit says SAOP overnighted a check to a hotel in Greeley, Colorado, where Alquist is based. That decision was made at the direction of Seifert and former SAOP Chief Financial Officer Denise O’Donnell, the suit says.
O’Donnell did not immediately respond to the Independent’s request for comment.
Throughout summer 2024, when Seifert was fired and O’Donnell resigned from SAOP, the nonprofit and Alquist continued to negotiate on the agreements related to the sale of the 3D printer, SAOP said in its suit. However, the agreements were never signed, and Alquist never sent the printer to SAOP.
“SAOP has demanded that Alquist return the $705,700.00, but Alquist has refused,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says Seifert has improperly benefitted from the transaction with Alquist by highlighting SAOP’s work in 3D printing construction and housing to advance her consulting company, Progress Appalachia.
Progress Appalachia’s website highlights various news coverage of Seifert’s work with SAOP, including in the area of 3D printing technology. It does not specifically mention Alquist.
Under Seifert’s tenure, SAOP initiated various other 3D printing initiatives, including with the company Virtuvian. Vitruvian is currently working with SAOP to produce 3D-printed homes in Chauncey, its CEO Chris Sentz told the Independent in an email.
A grant for land later bought by group with alleged ties to Seifert
The countersuit alleges that SAOP gave a $250,000 grant to the local organization Dream Bridge Collaborative to purchase the former location of Fur Peace Ranch under a land contract.
Dream Bridge Collaborative director Ginger Gagne is the sister of Vanessa Kaukonen, one of the former owners of Fur Peace Ranch.
The lawsuit alleges that Dream Bridge Collaborative “does not have a separate board, does not have any owners other than Gagne, does not employ any other person besides Gagne, and does not have its own bank account.”
According to email exchanges included in the lawsuit, Gagne told Seifert in May 2024 about the possible $250,000 grant that she needed for a down payment for the ranch. Gagne said in the emails she had not yet figured out a path toward securing startup funds for Lavender Ranch, the endeavor she hoped to launch there.
Nonetheless, Seifert approved the $250,000 grant agreement for Dream Bridge Collaborative the same month, without SAOP board approval, the lawsuit says. The funding was awarded as a subgrant from federal and state grant funding to SAOP through the Appalachian Community Grant Program.
The subgrant agreement, appended to the lawsuit, “does not allow for lump sum awards and specifically requires a reimbursement model for distribution of funds,” SAOP’s lawsuit says.
Nonetheless, Seifert authorized a $250,000 lump sum payment to Dream Bridge Collaborative for a down payment on the property.
After Seifert’s termination, in Aug. 2024, Gagne told SAOP via email that she had spent the $250,000 and wanted to discuss possible additional funding. However, no one at SAOP at that time “had any prior knowledge of the subgrant to DBC or DBC’s involvement with ACGP and could not locate the DBC funding on the SAOP budget or financial records of the DBC funding.”
SAOP then requested expenditure documentation from Gagne, and learned that only $16,000 of the expended $250,000 “was possibly used for eligible purposes,” the lawsuit says.
In February of this year, Gagne notified SAOP that she was selling the ranch to an “unnamed group of investors,” after which SAOP immediately suspended its subgrant agreement with Dream Bridge Collaborative.
SAOP requested information on the identity of the buyers, but Gagne told SAOP that a nondisclosure agreement prevented her from sharing that information, the lawsuit says.
Throughout March, SAOP “continued to demand documentation of how the money was spent and demand the identity of the buyer as well as the investors of the buyer of the Meigs County property,” but Gagne didn’t comply with SAOP’s requests, the lawsuit says.
In May, Lavender Ranch — a former LLC owned by Gagne, dissolved July 28 — completed purchase of the property. Lavender Ranch then immediately sold the property to an organization called Meigs Property Group for nearly $2 million, according to Meigs County Auditor records included in the lawsuit.
That’s nearly twice as much as what Lavender Ranch paid for the property, auditor records show.
The parcels that were part of the property sale are listed for use for motels and tourist cabins, commercial campgrounds, and vacant residential and agricultural land, according to the Meigs County Auditor website.
The lawsuit alleges that “Seifert may have a personal and professional relationship with Meigs Property Group LTD.” The Independent could not verify that allegation. Meigs Property Group was incorporated in March 2025.
Gagne has still not complied with SAOP’s requests for additional information, the lawsuit says.
In addition to her possible ties to the Meigs Property Group, the lawsuit also says Seifert had conflicts of interest with Gagne and Dream Bridge Collaborative, although it does not specify the nature of those alleged conflicts.
Gagne did not return a request for comment for this story.
Representatives of the Governor’s Office of Appalachia, which oversees the Appalachian Community Grant Program, also did not immediately return a request for comment.
Representatives of the office told the Independent in an email earlier this month that the office was not aware of allegations about Seifert’s alleged misconduct until after she left her role and that the office is “continuing to work closely with [SAOP’s] new leadership to ensure the project stays on track and delivers meaningful benefits to the people of Ohio’s Appalachian region.”
Corinne Colbert contributed reporting to this story.
DISCLOSURE: Jen Seifert served on the board of Southeast Ohio Independent News, which publishes the Athens County Independent, from its inception in August 2022 through January 2023. The author of this story, Dani Kington, and the Independent’s editor, Corinne Colbert, worked with her directly.
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