"He did fundraising from private sources and used that money to sponsor teams of college students, homeless people and intellectuals," a source said.

The organization, which will begin operations in earnest next month, is so new that it does not have a listing in the Toronto phone directory. It does have a prestigious address on King St. West, according to a Federal Express package sent from Sword to Eliot House co-masters Stephen Mitchell and Kristine Forsgard.

The address is in the Scotia Plaza, headquarters of the Bank of Nova Scotia and the heart of Toronto's financial district. The father of one of Serve Canada's co-founders, Cynthia Godsoe '93, is president of the Bank of Nova Scotia.

"What does not make sense to me is how anyone who knows David Sword could believe this," says Jeffrey B. Golden '93, a friend of Sword's from the Fox. "I'm kind of a cynic about people, but I know David so well. He's much too honest and much too good a guy."

If the Evening With Champions money was taken, how might it have happened? One former Evening With Champions official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the treasurer as the main keeper of books for the show. Committees would bring money they made to the treasurer, who would take the money and record it in a general ledger. Most committees kept receipts, but some didn't.

"Committees didn't keep their own money--there were no separate accounts," says the official. "They handed over proceeds to the treasurer, who kept a general record."

Money could be stolen from the Evening With Champions in two ways, the official says. A committee chair, for example, might not give all proceeds over to the treasurer. Or the treasurer might record less in the general ledger than a committee had brought in.

Students who have worked with Evening With Champions believe it would be extremely difficult for a co-chair to take money from the show because co-chairs only supervise the treasurer. They don't keep the books themselves.

In general, one co-chair is assigned to supervise the treasurer. That explains why Lee's co-chair in last year's show, Rachel L. Schultz '93, knew very little of the charity's finances.

"This was a shock to me," Schultz said after news of the missing money broke. "I was unaware of such discrepancies."

The former Evening With Champions official said he did not believe that Sword or Lee had taken any money. The official said an accounting mistake or carelessness was a more reasonable explanation. In interviews with The Crimson, students who knew the two said they had no evidence that either Sword or Lee had done anything wrong or knew about any wrongdoing.

Perhaps the most curious fact about the Evening With Champions finances is the lack of oversight over them. It appears that quality of record-keeping varied widely from year to year, and the charity show, unlike many other student organizations which handle less money, was never incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation.

Incorporation can insure better, more consistent record-keeping because non-profits are required to file annual tax returns. Former Evening With Champions workers say that incorporating the show was often considered.

"We considered it as something for the long term efficiency of the show," says one such worker. "We never considered it from a security point of view."

"In hindsight, I wish someone had done it," said the worker. "I wish Chaz and Rachel had done it."