Dale A. Simpson, 57, forced to resign last month amid complaints from employees about his heavy-handed management style, denies any wrongdoing. He said he reimbursed Camillus House for the home repairs, and his ouster was engineered by disgruntled employees who didn't like criticism from a demanding boss.

"Nobody is perfect, " said Simpson, who negotiated a secret resignation pact that includes six months of severance pay worth about $115,000. "Very few people like being criticized. . . . And I assure you that I have criticized people."

But interviews and records - including receipts and canceled checks provided by Simpson - indicate that the Miami-based charity's $182,000-a-year director reimbursed Camillus House for only about half of nearly $4,500 in materials that The Herald could trace to work at his home.

And aside from $150 that Simpson paid the Camillus House work program for yard work since 2002, The Herald found no record that he reimbursed the charity for hundreds of hours that Camillus workers claim they spent at his home on charity time.

In one instance, Simpson gave away a donated minivan to a former Camillus client, who says that about two weeks earlier, he installed brick pavers outside Simpson's new $455,000 Miami home, records and interviews show.

Simpson's bosses at Camillus - members of a Toronto-based Roman Catholic order of missionaries called Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd - said they feel "saddened, disappointed and betrayed" by Simpson.

"Very frankly, we trusted him, " said Brother Savio Charron, chief executive officer at Camillus since 2002. "In hindsight, we realize now it was too much faith to be placed in one person."

DEMAND TO STAFF

As recently as November - when allegations against Simpson began to surface - Charron issued a staff memo demanding that employees stop making "defamatory" accusations about Simpson, including his alleged misuse of Camillus resources.

"I am committed to engage our legal counselors in handling any further allegations as liability for slander, " Charron said in the Nov. 24 memo. Charron now acknowledges that the memo was premature.

"He tried to gain personally on the backs of the poor, " Charron said. "I'm overwhelmed by that."

Since it was founded in 1960, Camillus House - now based at 336 NW Fifth St. - has grown in stature and reputation. It has become one of Florida's best-known advocates for the poor and destitute, providing 51,000 free nights and 405,000 free meals last year.

In the six years Simpson ran the $10-million-a-year charity, he was given substantial power and benefits, records show.

In that time, Little Brothers nearly doubled his salary; provided him with a $43,000 sport utility vehicle, a Volkswagen Touareg; and gave him an expense account that - in the last year - averaged nearly $2,000 a month in meals, gasoline and business travel.

Little Brothers loaned Simpson $35,000 from the charity to help him buy a Miami house in 2000. It forgave the 8.5 percent loan after eight monthly payments. He never had to pay back the $32,570 balance.

"None of that is unusual for the size of the organization, and it was given freely, " Simpson said of his salary package.

But Simpson's pay and benefits came as a surprise last month to the charity's civilian board of directors, a group of influential Miami-Dade County business people who until recently acted primarily as fundraisers for the charity and advisors to Little Brothers.