HOUSTON -- Note: The following story is a verbatim transcript of an Investigators story that aired on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008, on KPRC Local 2 after the Olympics.

Local 2 Investigates is following the money tonight. We're tracking your donations meant for the families of fallen officers. Before you donate another dollar to the Texas Highway Patrol Association, you'll want to see where your money is really going.

Investigative reporter Amy Davis crossed the state to show you the bottom line of what that one charity is really giving and to who.

Right up the road from San Antonio's famed Riverwalk and the historic Alamo sits the not-so famous Texas Highway Patrol Museum.

We asked several people who live in San Antonio what they know about it.

"It's the ... what is it again? The highway patrol?" asked Debi Segovia.

"Never, never … I've never been in there," Patrice Ramos told us.

"We always wondered why it's actually there," said Jim Heidelberg.

Inside the museum, Davis told the employee, "There's nobody here, Mr. Denton. Nobody ever comes in here."

"Oh well, I don't think … I'd have to disagree with that," Lane Denton told Davis.

We'll learn more about him in a moment.

While it's not a crime to run a slow museum, one man says how the Texas Highway Patrol Association raises money for it here may be considered criminal.

"You know, I'm going in there supposedly helping the families of State Troopers and really I'm being used -- and the people of Texas are being used," said a former employer of Texas Highway Patrol Association, who asked not to be identified.

He worked at one of THPA's five Texas offices where he made some 700 calls a day. He says they all started something like this:

"This is Clay Matthews, Texas Highway Patrol.

Rest assured, Clay Matthews is not his real name.

"What were you told that your job was going to be?" Davis asked the man we’ll call Matthews.

"That I would be calling Texans just to make donations for troopers that had died in the line of duty," he answered.

They were collecting money for Troopers like 29-year-old Todd Holmes, who died when an 18-wheeler collided with his patrol car.

Telemarketers with the Texas Highway Patrol Association repeated Holmes' story hundreds of times a day.

"When they heard that he was in pursuit of a speeding vehicle and he got broadsided by an 18-wheeler, people were like, 'Oh my God, I want to help them,' you know. And it did have a big effect," Matthews said.

Local 2 Investigates has learned Holmes' widow and 4 children did receive money from THPA -- a total of $12,500.

"Surprised that's all the family got?" Davis asked Matthews.

"Yeah. I mean that's what one office makes in one or two weeks. We have 5 offices throughout Texas," replied Matthews.

We went to Austin, digging through records at the Attorney General's Office to find out where the rest of those donations went.

First, you should know, we're talking about three agencies under the THPA umbrella.

The museum in San Antonio is a non-profit charity organization.

The Association is a members group for troopers. The 501c6 is headquartered in a house in Austin.

THPA Services, Inc. is an affiliated for-profit business that publishes a magazine and sells scores of ads.

But the lines between the agencies are badly blurred because the three share a board of directors and most of the staff.

Tax records show in 2006 the Museum paid that staff $1,135,631 of the $1,876,637 collected in donations.

The executive vice president, Tim Tierney, raked in $182,872. The director of marketing got $167,991.

"It is very excessive, and that's a very high salary for a relatively low income," said Leah Napoliello, after reviewing THPA’s tax records.

Leah Napoliello researches charities for the Houston Better Business Bureau. It asks charities to voluntarily complete a survey to give the BBB more information to rate the agencies. When it asked THPA, the BBB got the same reply we received.

"No, they did not fill it out. They did not provide information," Napoliello said.

Tax records show the same year THPA paid its employees $1.1 million, it gave $28,159 to troopers' families for death benefits, student scholarships and dental insurance.

And there's more. The Patrol Association has a penchant for luxury cars that goes way back.

Tax records show the museum purchased a 1995 LandRover in 1996. It shelled out $50,551 for a 1999 Mercedes, another $57,592 for a 2001 Benz and $48,763 for a 2004 Lexus SUV.

"Two Mercedes' and a Lexus, how do you justify those vehicle purchases all near $50,000?" Davis asked Denton, back at the museum.

"That you would have to ask Austin," Denton said. "And I'm not sure that I have … I don't have privy to that."

But Denton is privy to more than he lets on. He is the founder of the Texas Highway Patrol Association. He started it in 1993, just months after a jury convicted him on two felony charges.

When Denton was the executive director of the DPS Officer's Association, a jury found he used his job to pay a close friend $67,211 of the association's money.

Denton was sentenced to six years probation. During that time he focused on his new non-profit THPA.

"What would you say to people who say that you've been doing this for 20 years, working, collecting money by fundraising, saying it's going to a charitable cause and putting it in your pocket?" Davis asked.

"Oh, goodness no," Denton calmly replied. "Actually, if you look at the program, we're now in a wonderful museum in San Antonio that's actually been very active. That started some eight or 10 years ago that I would say has had an enormous success.”

But that depends on who you ask.

"I felt good about it at first. After a few months of working there, I started seeing things that didn't add up. I didn't feel so good about it anymore," said Matthews.

There is no way for us to know how much money Denton is making. He is the Vice President of THPA Services, Inc., the for-profit company. That company is private and not required to report salaries.

No one in the Texas Highway Patrol Association's Austin office would return our repeated calls.

The Texas Attorney General's Office investigated THPA and its fundraising tactics. It tells us it closed its case in January 2007 without filing any charges.

Tune in to KPRC Local 2 at 10 on Monday to hear some of the tactics that telemarketer and his co-workers may have used on you to get a donation.