HONESDALE, WAYNE COUNTY — Pro Bono Partnerships Inc. has one publicly available tax filing that names its officers and board members. That single document — a FY2017 990-EZ — contains five names. Between them, those five people touch the Wayne County Bar Association, the Wayne County Community Foundation, and the county’s child welfare system. One of them now serves in the office that prosecutes criminal cases in the Court of Common Pleas. Several of them share a surname. Several of them share an address. None of it appears on PBP’s federal filings — because PBP stopped filing returns with anything on them.
- Part I: Wayne County Bar Association Lost Its Tax Exempt Status — Apparently for the Second Time
- Part II: Wayne County’s Pro Bono Nonprofit Discloses Nothing
Parts I and II documented the organizations: a bar association that lost its tax-exempt status — apparently for the second time — and ran deficits in five of six years, and a subsidiary nonprofit with no employees, no independent office, and seven consecutive years of blank federal returns while collecting state legal aid grants. This installment documents the people — who they are, how they connect, and what their own website said about the program’s scope before key pages started disappearing.
The Oxholm-Campbell Web
Carl (Tobey) Oxholm III holds at least five positions across PBP and the WCBA. He serves as PBP’s President, Secretary, and Governor on the organization’s Pennsylvania Department of State corporate filing, certifies PBP’s federal tax filings as principal officer, and chairs the WCBA Pro Bono Committee — the body responsible for overseeing the pro bono program. The state filing lists him under both his legal name (“Carl Oxholm”) and his nickname (“Tobey Oxholm”), obscuring that one person holds all of these titles. PBP is registered at a residential address: 1 Watawga Way West, Gouldsboro.
The WCBA’s own website hosts a biographical page for Oxholm’s private mediation practice. His bio page lists a 215 area code — Philadelphia — and promotes his services at $150 per hour. That rate matches the only published PBP counsel rate: $150 for conflict-of-interest stand-by counsel in Protection From Abuse cases, authorized by a March 2017 WCBA motion recorded in the Equal Access Project document. Oxholm is described as “once a senior partner in a large Pennsylvania law firm and the president of a university.” The university is Arcadia, in Glenside, Montgomery County.
An Arcadia University press release identifies Kimberly Campbell Oxholm as Oxholm’s wife. Kimberly Campbell Oxholm currently serves as First Vice President of the Wayne County Community Foundation — the same community foundation that received a $50,000 grant from the WCBA in FY2014 and later sent $36,000 back, as Pocono Review reported in Part I. Her maiden name is Campbell.
Oressa Campbell sat on PBP’s board alongside Brendan Ellis on the FY2017 filing — the only year PBP disclosed its officers. Campbell practices from 922 Church Street, Honesdale. She also serves as a Guardian ad Litem for Wayne County Children & Youth Services, contracted at $85 per hour according to Wayne County Commissioners agendas for fiscal years 2023-24 and 2025-26. The agency that appoints her as a GAL — CYS — is represented by its Solicitor, Christine Rechner. Rechner is WCBA Treasurer, PBP Treasurer by structural design, and practices from 924 Church Street. One building over.
Campbell’s own website advertises her connection to the program. The site for Campbell Law Offices states that “she is proud to be part of the Wayne County Pro Bono Association” — a name that does not correspond to any registered entity but appears to refer to PBP or the WCBA’s pro bono program. The same website advertises criminal defense services: “When you’ve been charged with a crime, make sure you have the best legal team to help. We provide support for all types of felonies and misdemeanors.”
Whether they’re related — and how — doesn’t appear in any filing Pocono Review reviewed. The surname overlap places a PBP board member and the wife of PBP’s Governor and Pro Bono Committee Chair in the same family name, connecting PBP’s board to the Wayne County Community Foundation’s leadership.
The fifth name on the filing is Michele Minor Wolf, listed as a board member. Wolf is not an attorney. She served as Executive Director of the Victims’ Intervention Program — Wayne County’s domestic violence and sexual assault services agency — for 26 years before stepping down in June 2023. The Equal Access Project document acknowledges her among those who provided “experience, wisdom, and guidance” during PBP’s creation. Her presence on PBP’s board represented the victim-services side of the program’s stated mission: custody and domestic violence. She left VIP the same year PBP filed its fifth consecutive 990-N e-postcard.
922 Church Street
A single block of Church Street in Honesdale contains PBP’s mailing address, the offices of its board members, and the law office of the Treasurer who manages both PBP’s and the WCBA’s finances.
Every 990-N e-postcard PBP has filed since FY2017 lists 922 Church Street as the mailing address. Oressa Campbell practices from the same address. Lindsey Collins, who joined Campbell Law Offices in 2013, has practiced from there as well.
Christine Rechner — Solicitor for Wayne County CYS, WCBA Treasurer, and PBP Treasurer — operates Rechner Law Office at 924 Church Street.
The WCBA itself used 922A Church Street on its FY2014 and FY2019 filings, with Rechner listed as the person with custody of the organization’s books. The bar association, its subsidiary, a PBP board member, a PBP contract attorney, and the Treasurer of both organizations all operate from the same block.
PBP’s First Contracts and the Post That Disappeared
On April 13, 2018, WCBA President Ronald Bugaj announced to members that the organization had awarded its first two “low bono” contracts through Pro Bono Partnerships. The recipients were Lindsey Collins and “Mike Parley.”
The post directed financial contributions to PBP’s Treasurer: “checks can be sent to our Treasurer, Brendan Ellis.” At the time, Ellis was still in private practice as Matthew Meagher’s law partner — the same Meagher who had served as WCBA Vice President in FY2014 and who now sits on the Court of Common Pleas. Ellis signed the WCBA’s FY2017 return as its authorized officer — the year the organization spent $16,832 on a golf tournament dinner while reactivating PBP to receive state legal aid money.
“Mike Parley” does not appear in the WCBA membership directory, the Wayne County Legal Journal mastheads, or any Pennsylvania attorney directory the Pocono Review can locate. Michael J. Farley does. Farley served as WCBA Secretary on the FY2018 and FY2019 tax filings. “Mike” is a nickname — no contract bears a nickname. “Parley” is one letter off from “Farley.” A bar association announcing its first-ever contract awards — funded by IOLTA grant money and member dues — identified the recipient by nickname and misspelled surname.
If “Mike Parley” is Michael Farley, a sitting WCBA officer would have received one of the first two contracts from his own organization’s subsidiary. Farley has since pleaded guilty in four separate Wayne County criminal cases. In November 2025, he entered guilty pleas to recklessly endangering another person arising from a June 2023 assault, and to disorderly conduct in two related cases — one involving witness intimidation charges and one involving the sale of mortgaged property. He had previously been found in contempt of court for violating a Protection From Abuse order in May 2024. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania temporarily suspended his law license on November 14, 2025, one day after his guilty pleas. His Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board record states he does not maintain professional liability insurance despite having private clients.
That makes two people connected to PBP’s finances with serious legal problems. Joseph Rydzewski, who served as WCBA Treasurer on the FY2018 and FY2019 filings — the last two returns the WCBA ever filed before losing its exempt status — was disbarred for stealing over $157,000, including $63,000 from clients and the remainder from his own law firm through fraudulent expense reimbursements.
Ellis is identified as Treasurer in this April 2018 post. But PBP’s FY2017 990-EZ — covering the period that ended just months earlier — also lists Ellis as Treasurer. By the FY2018 return, Ellis appears as Vice President and Rydzewski is listed as Treasurer. The transition happened during the same period PBP was awarding its first contracts and receiving its first IOLTA grants — and the April 2018 post still directed money to Ellis by name.
The post also called PBP a “not-for-profit subsidiary” of the WCBA. That makes three separate sources — PBP’s own Schedule O, the Equal Access Project document, and this contracts announcement — using the word “subsidiary” while every WCBA tax return from FY2017 through FY2019 denies having a related or controlled entity.
The contracts post also contained a financial detail not found elsewhere in the public record. It stated that the WCBA “voted to transfer the first $10,000 from its funds” to PBP — the first documented transfer between the two organizations. That post is gone.
What PBP Says It Does Depends on Who’s Asking
The gap between PBP’s IOLTA description and its public language, documented in Part II, runs deeper than two descriptions. Six distinct statements of PBP’s scope exist across six sources, all produced by the same organization’s leadership. The language gets broader the further it moves from the entity writing the checks.
To the funder — the Pennsylvania IOLTA Board — PBP’s scope is “exclusively” custody and domestic violence. In the 2018 contracts announcement, PBP’s stated focus was “contested custody and abuse cases” as the number-one unmet need. On the WCBA website’s PBP page, the scope widens to “court proceedings.” On the same page, a second sentence adds a catchall: PBP provides an attorney when “the interests of justice otherwise require it.” It covers anything a judge decides it covers.
The Equal Access Project document — the founding blueprint for PBP, adopted November 22, 2017 — lists “court-appointed/payment-per case” as a contemplated funding source on page 33, with no restriction to civil cases, custody, or domestic violence.
IOLTA grants are restricted to civil legal aid. IOLTA’s own eligibility requirements state that applicants must have as their primary purpose “the provision of civil legal services without charge.” PBP told IOLTA its work is exclusively civil. PBP told the public its work covers “court proceedings.” PBP’s internal planning document contemplated court-appointed payments per case — language not limited to civil matters. The same people wrote all of these descriptions.
The Website Went Dark
The WCBA website was rebuilt in June 2026 — after Pocono Review’s reporting on the Ellis Law Group and Commonwealth v. White. Multiple pages that documented PBP’s founding, its first contracts, and the people involved are no longer accessible.
The contracts post naming Collins, “Mike Parley,” and Ellis as Treasurer — 404.
The president’s message, which named President Judge Raymond Hamill, DA Janine Edwards, Christine Rechner, Tobey Oxholm, and Frances Gruber as contributors to PBP’s creation — 404.
Tag archive pages for “low-bono” and “mike-farley” — both accessible when the Pocono Review first reviewed them — returned 404 errors by the end of the same day. The low-bono tag page had shown a stub of the contracts post with the text: “On April 13, 2018 Ronald Bugaj, President of the Wayne County Bar Association (WCBA) announced to members that the decision to award the first two low bono contracts was made.”
The Equal Access Project PDF — PBP’s 45-page founding document — was moved from its original URL path to a new one dated May 2026, though the website rebuild occurred in June. The document itself remains available.
The pages no longer accessible are the ones that named specific people in connection with PBP’s money.
What Remains Unknown
No public record shows how a single dollar of PBP’s IOLTA grant money has been spent. Seven consecutive 990-N e-postcards certify gross receipts under $50,000 but say nothing else. If the funding sources described in PBP’s own founding document are flowing as planned, PBP’s actual revenue may exceed the threshold that would require a 990-EZ with real numbers.
Whether PBP’s IOLTA-restricted funds have been used for criminal conflict counsel appointments — which PBP’s internal planning documents contemplated and its public-facing website language permits — remains an open question.
Who received PBP’s “low bono” contracts after Collins and “Mike Parley” in 2018 — and whether any contracts went to attorneys who also hold court appointments or serve as Guardians ad Litem in the same case categories PBP’s IOLTA funding covers — has never been publicly disclosed.
Pocono Review examined the sole public tax filing for Pro Bono Partnerships Inc. (EIN 23-2604391) covering fiscal year 2017, and 990-N e-postcard filings for tax years 2009 and 2018 through 2024 obtained through the IRS Exempt Organizations Search tool. Corporate records for PBP were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State business entity search. The WCBA’s Equal Access Project document, adopted November 22, 2017, provided the founding resolution, governance structure, and anticipated funding sources for Pro Bono Partnerships Inc. IOLTA grantee descriptions were obtained from paiolta.org. Wayne County Commissioners agendas provided Guardian ad Litem contract rates. The WCBA’s April 2018 contracts announcement is no longer accessible on the WCBA website. Tobey Oxholm’s WCBA biographical page was captured before the site was rebuilt. Criminal case dispositions for Michael J. Farley were obtained from the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas docket system (CP-64-CR-362-2023, CP-64-MD-29-2024, CP-64-CR-253-2025, CP-64-CR-254-2025) and the Magisterial District Court docket system (MJ-22302-CR-87-2025). Farley’s disciplinary status and temporary suspension order were obtained from the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Officer histories were cross-referenced against IRS filings, PA Department of State records, WCBA website content, and Wayne County Legal Journal mastheads.