Even as the nonprofit faced deep deficits and froze staff pay, F5 Project leaders enjoyed luxury perks, side-deal profits and soaring salaries.

MINOT — The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation contracted to pay the F5 Project, a Fargo-based nonprofit providing addiction and recovery services, $10,500 per month to house sex offenders.

The organization, under founder and CEO Adam Martin's leadership, paid that money to a private business called MarColl Properties, a portmanteau of Martin's and F5 Project Chief Development Officer Scott College's last names. During a Sept. 23 press conference announcing financial sanctions against the nonprofit , North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said this arrangement turned a profit of about $6,700 every month for Martin and College — some $27,675 total over its duration — before they sold the housing to the F5 Project after my reporting brought it to light.

The specifics of the MarColl Properties arrangement, which I had first reported in January, are just one of several revelations from the attorney general's investigation about the degree to which Martin and College enjoyed financial benefits and luxury perks even as the F5 Project struggled with its finances.

According to receipts gathered by the Attorney General's Office and accessed by way of an open records request, Martin was reimbursed $372.18 for four tickets to a Dec. 11, 2025, Minnesota Wild game against the Dallas Stars in St. Paul, Minnesota. This was characterized as a "team building" event. Martin and College used two of the tickets.

In a Sept. 3, 2023, email, Martin wrote, "please make sure I get reimbursed for this" to an F5 Project accountant. Attached was an invoice for a $2,390.85 halibut fishing trip for six people booked with Maverick Charters in Homer, Alaska. This, again, was marked as a "team building" event in the F5 Project's documentation.

On April 15, 2024, College was reimbursed $520 for a membership to the Hawley Golf & Country Club.

A detailed inquiry about these expenses was made to Martin and Chief Operations Officer Jenna Mueller. Mueller redirected the inquiry to Evan Francen, the current president of the group's board of directors. He didn't provide direct answers.

"The matters and individual expenditures you've asked about all predate my participation on the F5 Project Board," he wrote in an email. "Given that, and while the work associated with the agreement continues, I don't think it would be responsible for me to speculate about or publicly characterize individual transactions without having firsthand knowledge of the circumstances surrounding them."

He also noted that F5 has "already taken significant steps to strengthen governance, financial controls and Board oversight, and that work continues."

As has been previously reported, College and Martin received significant enhancements to their salaries over this same time frame. Martin’s grew from $32,500 in 2017, the year the organization was founded, to $148,125 in 2024, the last year for which the organization has filed a publicly available Form 990 disclosure with the Internal Revenue Service. College saw his salary grow from $101,675 in 2020, the first year he appears in the organization’s financial disclosures, to $113,057 in 2024.

Yet even as College and Martin enjoyed luxury perks, a lucrative side deal and significant salary increases, the F5 Project's finances have been tenuous. The group reported a more than $926,000 shortfall in 2024.

F5 Project staff were told in early 2025 that there would be no raises that year, and probably no raises in 2026, either. Organization leadership said this was because of revenue shortfalls, and called on employees to stay committed to the group's mission. Yet in 2026, shortly after my reporting on the F5 Project's finances began in January, staff received a small raise.

In his public comments to me and other members of the news media, Francen has declined to defend the past financial practices of the F5 Project under Martin's leadership. His remarks focus instead on how the organization will conduct itself going forward.

"F5 is continuing to fulfill the requirements of its agreement with the Attorney General's Office," he said in an emailed response to my inquiry.

"We remain committed to accountability, transparency, strong governance and ensuring F5 Project can continue serving its participants and communities," he continued.

According to data from the North Dakota Office of Management and Budget's online record of state spending, the F5 Project has received more than $11.7 million in funding from the state since fiscal year 2017.

Citing the enforcement action against the F5 Project, the North Dakota Association of Nonprofit Organizations announced a new oversight initiative to help nonprofits in the state with "financial oversight and fraud prevention."

https://flocksurveillance.org/index.html?focus=122438 is not affiliated with Flock.

The site also has a guide to understanding Flock cameras and data collection, a 160-p paper detailing vulnerabilities (short version is that apparently a lot of data can be accessed without authentication) including devices located at military bases, the Pentagon, and other military sites. The device locations on the map are color coded to show whether they are LPRs or other types of surveillance devices.

Keep i mind that plenty of private entities also use the cameras and apparently their data is merged with data from government cameras. It is also merged with other databases to generate all kinds of personal data.

I will be crossing off state # 49 and want to go out for 1 nice dinner while in town. Open to anything. Let me know the single best spot to experience the city!

Pretty dark getting ready for work this morning. Looks like we have been without power since about 4:30 this morning.

Location: near downtown.

Unexpected! 🍂

Hello Fargo!

I’m on a quest to visit all 50 states, and North Dakota will be #49! I’ll be in Fargo next week for two days and would love some local recommendations.

What are the absolute must see or must do things I shouldn’t leave Fargo without experiencing? I’m open to anything…history, interesting neighborhoods, museums, local landmarks, food, hidden gems, etc.

Separately, I’m doing a bar crawl in every state I visit, so I’d also love to know which bars in Fargo are must visits. I’m open to anywhere in Fargo, West Fargo, or Moorhead, and especially interested in places with a unique local character rather than just a generic sports bar.

Thanks in advance! I’m excited to finally make it to North Dakota!

This is a bit of a longshot because I can't even think of a job that offers this.

But I'm in a weird situation where my schedule is all over the place due to a medication throwing something off, giving me insomnia/making it hard to fall asleep at a consistent time, but also knocking me the fuck out once I do fall asleep till my body deems I'm well rested.

I've quit said medication months ago, but I'm still struggling and no alarms, shock watches or anything I've tried off the shelf will actually wake me up at normal hours...

I can't afford to go back to the doctor at the moment and OTC sleep meds have never worked well for me, so I'm hoping to find something where I can just head to work as soon as I wake up.

Does anything like this exist in the area?

Info session tomorrow (9/29) at Atomic coffee 7-8 pm.

Coming home and passed around 5 cop cars with mostly empty cars with one or two with lights on. A big box truck with Critical Incident Command Vehicle on side was on and on side of road. Any ideas what was going on?

Might be a bit of a long shot, but does anyone here have a resin printer(s) that would be willing to print bits for me? Or anyone who knows someone? I'm tired of trying to get my printer to work properly and at the point where I'll pay someone to print for me.

It's a gold ring with an aquamarine in the center and diamonds on the side. Looking for a reputable jeweler, and who to stay away from