CHARITY CHIEF : Target of Suit Denies It All, Defends Firm : Mitchell Gold says he’s an honest businessman who’s being harassed by authorities. ‘No charity has complained,’ he says.

IRVINE — Mitchell Gold has been accused of big-league fraud. He has been accused of siphoning off millions of dollars donated to charity for personal gain.

But Gold sees himself quite differently.

“We are legal. We are licensed. We are bonded. . . . And no charity has complained,” Gold said.

In an interview Thursday, Gold said he is an honest businessman who is being “harassed” by the state attorney general’s office.

That office Thursday filed a massive fraud suit against Gold and his telephone fund-raising company, Orange County Charitable Services. The lawsuit accuses Gold, his company and his business associates of bilking charitable donors. Gold’s company has raised $8 million in the name of charities since 1988 but less than 5% went to charity, according to the lawsuit.

Gold disputed the claim. The amount that has gone to charity, he said, is “actually around 10%”

Gold’s offices are at 209 Technology Drive here, in a modern, well-appointed business complex. One of the walls of the office is adorned with photos of movie stars and other celebrities who have endorsed some of the charities Gold solicits for. One photo was inscribed, “Keep up the good work!”

Gold said all the charities his company solicits for know that they are only going to get 10% of the money raised. He said this is spelled out in contracts his company makes with the charities.

Gold implied that Orange County Charitable Services, his fund-raising company, is totally separate from three charities for which the firm solicits. Those charities are United Citizens Against Drugs, Stop the Pain and American Veterans Assistance Corp.

According to the attorney general’s office, the three charities “were created to serve as clients for Gold’s fund-raising business.” The three charities are named as co-defendants in the state’s fraud suit, which seeks a court order to dissolve the three charities and “to direct their assets to legitimate charities.”

Whatever the connection between the charities and Gold’s company, the central legal issue in the state’s case is whether its telephone fund-raising tactics are legal.

“If the state had its way, telemarketing would be illegal,” Gold said. “They just don’t like it.”

Gold readily acknowledged that he formed Orange County Charitable Services as a money-making, for-profit company. He said professional fund-raising companies such as his often are necessary to help nonprofit charities survive.

“We help charities when they’re new,” he said. “Let’s face it, who wants to help a charity when no one’s ever heard of it?”

Gold’s fund-raising firm is a statewide organization. He said the company has 12 other offices, all equipped for telemarketing throughout California. The expense of such a large organization eats up a lot of the money raised, Gold said.

“The bottom line is that about 3 1/2 to 4% actually goes to my pocket as profit,” he said. “Everything else goes to the cost of raising funds. When you’ve got 13 offices, you got 13 rents, 13 electric bills. It also means you’ve got 13 managers, 13 assistant managers. We run a very good organization here. We spend money to do things the right way.

“So out of that huge chunk of 90%, almost 50% of that is payroll. Then you’re looking at 5% to 10% in phone bills and on and on and on. So with all our overhead, only about 3 1/2% to 4% is profit.”

Gold said the attorney general’s office has been trying, without success, to prove he has embezzled some of the charitable donations.

“I’ve had friends who called me and said the attorney general’s office was asking questions about how often I go to Laughlin,” Nev., Gold said.

“These guys were asking about a gambling problem and all kinds of crazy questions like that. I had my attorney . . . say we didn’t appreciate questions like that.”

Gold, 35, who lives in Irvine, said that he is nothing more than a hard-working businessman who “got into the fund-raising business strictly by accident.”

“I got to talk to one of these guys on the phone, and found it was a professional fund-raiser,” he said. “I got interested in the business. And when I took a look at it, I said, ‘You know what, this is the most upside-down, operating-in-the-gray-area-of-the-law, multibillion-dollar industry I’ve ever seen in my life.’

“I’ve spent the last six years trying to professionalize it and saying it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s legal. It’s licensed.”