Posted on 08/20/2020 4:06:08 PM PDT by conservative98
WASHINGTON — Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage promised donors to his online crowdfunding campaign that their money would only go to construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. However, he cashed in on that trust by secretly taking more than $300,000 in donations to buy himself a luxury car, jewelry and pay down his debts, according to a Justice Department indictment unsealed Thursday.
Kolfage 38, of Miramar Beach, Fla., is a well-known Purple Heart recipient who survived a rocket attack in 2004 at Balad Air Base in Iraq that caused the amputation of his legs and right arm, according to his official website. His site also claims he is “the most severely wounded airman to survive any war.”
In December 2018, Kolfage started a GoFundMe campaign called “We the People Will Build the Wall” to raise money to donate to the federal government’s construction of the wall along the southwest border. He later founded a nonprofit organization called “We Build the Wall” to allow donors to transfer their GoFundMe donations for the new purpose of constructing a private border wall. The nonprofit has raised more than $25 million from those donors as well as new donors.
Kolfage was arrested Thursday for defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors by secretly getting paid with their contributions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced in a statement.
Each of the four men have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each charge has a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the Justice Department.
On the We Build the Wall website, Kolfage states he is building a wall on the border because “I take the security of the American people very seriously.” The wall is to be constructed on private property to supplement Trump’s border wall plans, according to the site.
“It’s time we stand up and fight back against the globalist who continue to allow our nation to be overrun. I fought in war and lost three limbs defending this country, but now the war is at our doorstep,” the nonprofit’s website states on its donation page.
While some money was spent on wall construction, all four men took from the funds and spent it on themselves, according to the indictment. In order to encourage donations for the nonprofit, Bannon and Kolfage publicly stated Kolfage would not take any of the money for himself.
“Some of those donors wrote directly to Kolfage that they did not have a lot of money and were skeptical about online fundraising campaigns, but they were giving what they could because they trusted Kolfage would keep his word about how their donations would be spent,” the indictment states.
Instead of following through on their promises to donors regarding no compensation for Kolfage, the men “secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle,” acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in the prepared statement.
The indictment states Kolfage, Bannon, and Badolato “reached a secret agreement” just days after establishing the We Build the Wall nonprofit so Kolfage could be “covertly” paid $100,000 upfront and then another $20,000 each month.
And once again, “the public” is inserted into the excerpt. Why are they so reluctant to let us know the exact original text?
Adding MMGR’s thread here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3490779/posts
If they can prove even part of what is in this indictment they are toast
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/us-bannon-Indictment.pdf
And the trail wont be that hard to prove. These clowns were idiots.
I have to say I am really disillusioned about Bannon after reading that indictment.
He is a clown. This scheme is so clumsy it’s like some third rate huckster put it together
Maybe it’s drugs, or alzheimer’s or alcohol or some other substance that turned him into this..but I sure thought he was smarter than this scheme.
and btw, if you are a sports bettor and dont believe Vegas RIGS games..or Mafia..or someone...take a look at the final seconds of the Magic versus bucks game tonight
It makes no sense whatsoever other than someone bought someone off.
Magic is down. One basket will make a difference and will sway many many thousands of dollars...and they do this:
https://twitter.com/br_betting/status/1296606530746249216
Incredible.
And blatant.
The case was investigated by the Postal Inspectors not the fbi.
What I was most impressed with is when Kolfage and his wife went to the collect the dollar from Pelosi that she promised for the wall. She never gave them the dollar. When is she going to be charged?
All you need to know is that bannons first public statement was not I DIDNT DEFRAUD ANYBODY. Instead it was THIS IS JUST AN ATTEMPT TO STOP THE WALL.
As if prosecuting a couple of grifters would stop the wall.
Bannon will look for a plea bargain. He can’t afford to go to trial. The exposure is too great.
The forensic are pretty simple. Just read the Indictment and you will see what the grand jury saw and what the prosecution will present. Pretty simple stuff.
An Indictment is not a press release.
Good, then don’t. Working down at the manure plant is so much more rewarding than putting criminals in jail.
I am against political prosecutions of any kind guilty or not.
Just because YOU dont care ...doesnt absolve them of committing a crime.
this is pretty straight forward..and will be easy to prove because this gang was a bunch of idiots.
Just curious. If you were a defense lawyer how would you try to defend these idiots.
Brian cant say he was clueless and didnt run the operation because he made overt attempts to hide the source of his income.
I am a prosecutor by trade. The only defenses I see are
1. I didn’t make the representation that no one would take a penny, only Koflage did.
2. The money in my personal bank account was reimbursement for expenses. This is a stretch because Koflage got 20K a month and Bannon got a million.
3. We didn’t intend to deceive or defraud anybody.
4. We just didn’t file the right paperwork. We should have declared we were going to get paid. This was just an oversight.
5. We are respectable people, we should get the benefit of the doubt.
In reality there isn’t any real good or effective defense so they will work hard for a plea bargain, which they will probably get. They will have to agree to the asset forfeiture filed.
Notice that bannons first public statement was NOT to claim his innocence. That tells you even he can’t come with a good excuse til he talks to a lawyer.
Compared to what, spending days down at the Texas manure plant?
We get this crap now but Bull Durhams "investigation" seems stalled forever???? Just one low level indictment?????????
You can put money that Steve Bannon and Koflage are taking it seriously.
Ahhhh....your non-answer says it all.
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