A Casper woman whose fund-raising efforts on behalf of a local charity are under scrutiny insists the raffle of a giant Easter basket was a legitimate event. She says police confiscated the money she collected when they arrested her on two unrelated felony charges.

Rhonda Abitbol, 43, said the Easter basket raffle to raise funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wyoming was won by Tammy Fleetwood of Casper.

Abitbol said Fleetwood's grown children kept a talking toy and various other items that came in the homemade basket before returning it to Abitbol.

Police and officials from the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wyoming had said Monday they did not know the fate of the basket as Abitbol, who helped organize the raffle, appeared in court on drug and fraud charges.

Abitbol was taken into police custody Saturday.

Investigators searched Abitbol's house earlier in the week and reported finding three packages of methamphetamine, along with receipts from purchases made with a credit card that was reported stolen.

Detectives were investigating a credit card company's report that a caller from an address on East Third Street was suspected of using a stolen card to make more than $600 of purchases in the Casper area.

The investigation into the reported misuse of the credit card led detectives to Abitbol, according to Sgt. Brad Wnuk of the Casper Police Department.

Wnuk said investigators recovered several receipts linked to that card in their search of Abitbol's home.

"Because there are Easter items on the receipts we recovered, we are interested to know if they made their way into the Easter basket," Wnuk said.

Police also say they recovered cash and a number of checks made out to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wyoming in their search of the home. Wnuk said he could not reveal the amount of money involved in either case.

Wnuk said police continue to investigate whether there was any attempted fraudulent activity connected with the raffle fund-raiser.

When that investigation concludes, Wnuk said, all of the money intended for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wyoming will be released to that organization.

Abitbol told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday that the fund-raiser was legitimate. The only reason she has not provided the funds she and her 12-year-old daughter raised for Make-A-Wish was that they were all seized by police when her house was searched on March 29, two days after Easter.

The records from the raffle were also seized, Abitbol said, making it impossible for her to say how much money was raised.

Abitbol said the fund-raiser had "nothing to do" with what she called "false accusations" against her. She was emotional as she talked about her daughter's response to publicity about the Easter raffle.

"My daughter is about to fall apart about this," Abitbol said. "She did a good thing for the community, and her basket had nothing to do with what the police are doing."

Abitbol also insisted that local merchants donated everything in the Easter basket. And, she said, she and her daughter ran a similar fund-raiser last year to benefit Seton House.

Seton House Director Pam Kozola on Tuesday said Abitbol contacted her staff about a fund-raiser to benefit the organization, but they were never notified that such an event took place.

"To my knowledge, we never received any funds," she said.

Reporter Anthony Lane can be reached at (307) 266-0593 or anthony.lane@casperstartribune.net.