The Continuing Scandal At Air America

CaptainsQuartersblog.com ^ | Aug. 1. 2005 | Captain Ed

[prairiebreeze]

The New York Sun takes on the Air America story today and advances it by leaps and bounds, talking with the president of the non-profit which had its money taken by Air America founder Evan Cohen. It turns out that Cohen didn't just get money for the netlet, but also managed to get plenty for his own pockets as well while sitting on the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club board:

Initially, members of the executive committee viewed Mr. Cohen fondly because he had thrown a tremendously successful fund-raising affair for Gloria Wise in Manhattan last year. They recalled being impressed by the wealthy clientele and the large sums of money he raised, according to Ms. Graves. Because of that confidence in Mr. Cohen, she said, the executive committee approved two loans to Air America, one for $80,000 and another for $87,000.

Ms. Capell said she had met Mr. Cohen several times.

"He was very suave, a very wonderful young man. He left a very favorable impression," she said in a telephone interview.

After the initial two loans, Ms. Graves said that just before the launch of Air America her organization lent the network another $213,000, authorized with a rubber stamp of her signature on a document she said she never saw. More recently, Ms. Graves said, Gloria Wise made a wire transfer of at least $400,000 to Air America without her knowledge.

In addition, according to Ms. Graves, the longtime executive director of Gloria Wise, Charles Rosen, later told the board he had lent an additional $35,000 of the organization's funds to Mr. Cohen for medical expenses. According to Ms. Capell, the board member, Mr. Cohen told Mr. Rosen he needed $25,000 to pay for chemotherapy. Mr. Cohen told associates that he recovered from brain cancer, according to Ms. Capell. Later, Mr. Cohen asked for $10,000 - which he was lent - be cause his father, a businessman in Asia, was "gravely ill," Ms. Capell said.

Ms. Graves said that she knew of the personal loans to Mr. Cohen, but that she thought they were taken from Mr. Rosen's personal discretionary budget, "not the agency's."

Now we have potential wire fraud, forgery, and fraud by deception, and probably a host of other potential charges against Mr. Cohen for his actions with Gloria Wise and Air America. Ms. Graves also tells the New York Sun that AA has agreed to pay back $800K over the next two years, not just the $480K originally noted by the Bronx News. Fortunately, Gloria Wise remained solvent, despite the wording in Piquant Media's earlier statements which tended to suggest otherwise.

Clearly, though, AA did not pay a dime back before this investigation broke open. Nor did they agree to pay back the illegal transfers immediately, which again underscores their fragile economic status. They still have to meet that payroll, including that of their stars, who apparently don't mind taking their money ahead of what's owed to the poor kids, elderly, and Alzheimers patients served by Gloria Wise.

Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney have plenty more on this story, including lots of links to past and present indicators of AA's precarious position. The New York Post also has started to cover the issue, which should garner even more national attention.

One certainty has arisen: this is no "phony" story. Air America had better get out in front of this, and its supporters should stop blaming the blogs for AA's miscreancy and demand that AA resolve the issue forthwith. Two years of dragging out payments for stolen money means two years and more of albatross-dragging for an enterprise that cannot afford any more baggage than it already has.

[prairiebreeze]

Paging Randi Rhodes, Paging Al Franken...!

[kcvl]

Do I understand this correctly? Air America agreed to pay for a loan they say they don't owe?!!! lol!

******


Air America Radio's official statement.

If the allegations of mismanagement and corruption at Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club are true, it is absolutely disgraceful.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal and the HBO Documentary, Left of the Dial‚ the company that the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club officials gave money to, Progress Media, has been defunct since May 2004. That company was run at the time by Evan Cohen who has not had any involvement in Air America Radio since May 2004.

The current owners of Air America Radio have no obligation to Progress Media‚s business activities. We are very disturbed that Air America Radio's good name could be associated with a reduction in services for young people, which is why we agreed months ago to fully compensate the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club as a result of this transaction.

We at Air America Radio strongly believe in the mission of Boys and Girls Clubs to provide a safe and nurturing place for young people to learn and grow. As a result, we recently allowed the same club, Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, to use our name in a fundraising effort for a summer camp for children in their community.

The funding for Camp Air America was raised and collected entirely by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, and Air America promoted the camp on air and urged support for it. A link on our web site sent those interested in contributing to the camp to the Gloria Wise web site. Regrettably, the camp did not survive the closure of the Gloria Wise organization. We have offered any individuals who contributed to the camp as a result of Air America's promotion the option of a refund paid for by Air America Radio and the Club offered the alternative option of having their donation redirected to Kip's Bay Boys and Girls Club.

[stocksthatgoup]

I have looked in a number of papers and it shows up nowhere. Nowhere in MSM.

[blau993]

Assuming that the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club is a New York not-for-profit organization, Attorney General Elliott Spitzer has authority to step in, investigate and take action to prevent unlawful expenditures or waste of the organization's assts. It was that very authority which Spitzer used to challenge the compensation package of Dick Grasso, the former Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE is a New York not-for-profit corporation, so Spitzer had the authority to step in and challenge the compensation package as excessive, even though it had been approved by the NYSE Board. Of course, since all involved here appear to be of the RAT persuasion, it will indeed be a cold day in hell before we hear from Mr. Spitzer.

[Plutarch]

The New York Post also has started to cover the issue, which should garner even more national attention.

I checked the New York Post but didn't see anything. Has anyone seen a story?

[kcvl]

Since 1977, Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club has been helping youth from tough Bronx neighborhoods stay out of trouble, stay in school and succeed in life.


Executive Staff and Directors

* Charles Rosen - Executive Director
* Jeff Aulenbach - Deputy Executive Director for Operations & Administration
* Lorraine Corva - Deputy Executive Director for Programs
* John C. Mullen - Chief Financial Officer
* Egeria Bennett - Assistant Executive Director for Youth Programs
* Maria Berrios - Assistant Executive Director for Operations & Administration
* Barbara Bruno - Assistant Executive Director for Senior Programs
* Masani Davis - Assistant Executive Director for Youth Programs
* Glenn Fields - Assistant Executive Director for Youth Programs
* Lynne Mandiola - Assistant Executive Director for Human Resources
* Jose Rodriguez - Assistant Executive Director for Youth Programs
* Lissa Rodriguez - Assistant Executive Director for Youth Programs
* John Curtis - Marketing Director
* Ibis Ozoria - Budget Director
* John Terrero - MIS Director

Board of Directors

* Jeannette Graves - President
* Deloris Barmore - Vice President
* Octavio Cruz - Treasurer
* Hillel J. Valentine - Secretary
* Anna L. Capell
* Leslie Frohberg
* John Roset
* Charles Rosen - Ex-Officio
* Genevieve Tearr
* Novella Thomas


Gloria Wise Brown

Bronx native Gloria Brown Wise devoted her life to social justice and community action.

Ms. Wise attended Bennett College as an undergraduate, a prominent Historically Black College for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. As student body president of Bennett College in 1960, Ms. Wise was the first woman to join the historic Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins—non-violent protests against segregation that helped launch the Civil Rights Movement.

Gloria Wise eventually returned to the Bronx, moving to Co-op City in 1969 as one of the co-op’s original shareholders. She earned a graduate degree in social work from Hunter College, and was employed as a social worker at New York City’s Spofford Juvenile Center.

In 1977 Ms. Wise was recruited by Charles Rosen, a member of Co-op City’s Board of Directors, to found and lead the Youth Activities Committee (YAC), a grass-roots, community based after-school program for children living in Co-op City.
“She created a retinue of people around herself: her church, some of her neighbors, some of her friends, others in the community who were committed to YAC,” recalls Mr. Rosen. “And it was an interesting phenomenon, because she was a black woman in what was then a primarily white community. She really saw all the kids in the program as her own children.”

Ms. Wise remained chairwoman of the YAC until 1984, when she incorporated it as YAC Inc., an independent non-profit organization with herself as executive director. Still working full time as a social worker at a juvenile detention center, she managed YAC in her spare time with no salary. “This was her avocation,” Mr. Rosen says. “Gloria was a hard-working, Christian woman—in the way in which one epitomizes giving, that’s who she was.”

By the early 1990s, Ms. Wise had grown the YAC grew into an organization with a annual budget of $175,000 and was providing after-school tutoring, recreation programs and summer day camp to about 300 children a year at two rented locations in the community.

Ms. Wise learned that she had brain cancer in the fall of 1992, just after she retired from social work to devote herself full-time to her youth organization. She asked Mr. Rosen to take over the organization, and he agreed. The two worked together nearly daily for the next several months, until Ms. Wise’s death in June 1993.

In 1996, the club was renamed Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Ms. Wise’s honor. “It was a personal commitment of myself and the board that we would always remember that this is the incredible woman who founded the agency and who ran it for 15 years,” Mr. Rosen says, “nearly 15 years later, her legacy and spirit are alive in our agency.”

[stocksthatgoup]

on what date & page was the story in the post done?

[satchmodog9]

You can bet if it were someone like Limbaugh they would have already had him convicted.

[prairiebreeze]

BAD 'AIR' DAY (Air America Charity Funding Scandal)

This is what required registration that I referred to. Posted on FR 7-30-05

[talleyman]

Yeah big bucks, then Cohen himself gets funds for "medical bills".

Why not? After all , Cash & Kerry got a ton of loot for resuscitating a hamster...

[steve-b]

Being in on the ground floor of an amateurishly-run operation that will fail anyway after getting lots of people to throw money at for ideological reasons is like the Happy Hunting Ground for an embezzler or scam artist.

[prairiebreeze]

After the initial two loans, Ms. Graves said that just before the launch of Air America her organization lent the network another $213,000, authorized with a rubber stamp of her signature on a document she said she never saw.

Pardon me, but is this the way that sums of that amount are normally handled....or is Jeanette Graves just not the brightest bulb in the lamp??

[kcvl]

The Bronx News has learned, through informed sources, that the diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City to the liberal Air America Radio is at the center of the city’s probe of corruption at the local club.

The money, which was reportedly paid to Air America as a loan, was supposed to be paid back with interest, two unidentified informed sources told the News. One source added that Air America officials, led by an official of the Gloria Wise Club, agreed to help the local club by publicizing its activities.

To date, no indictments have been handed down in the New York City Department of Investigation’s ongoing probe of the Gloria Wise Club’s reported transfer of funds to Air America…

…The city’s DOI is pursuing the probe because the Gloria Wise Club depends heavily on city funding for its operations. These funds are subject to extensive audits, as are funds received through the state and federal governments.

The Co-op City-based club, which Rosen has built into an empire in the Co-op City community, reportedly has 19 contracts and at least one grant with the city, worth a total of $9.7 million.

Over the last year, Rep. Joseph Crowley has secured two major federal grants for the Gloria Wise Club, one for a day-care program for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers and the other for the community’s NORC program for senior citizens. The grant for the program for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers was for $250,000, while the grant for the NORC program was for $99,410.

In 2003, Crowley secured a $218,500 grant for a mentoring program that the Gloria Wise Club runs.

Cohen, who is reportedly at the center of the Gloria Wise probe, is a Guam-based investors who was reportedly a key principal in the start-up of Air America…

******

Gloria Wise City-Funded Programs Transferred Following DOI Investigation

City-funded programs previously operated by the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club and the affiliated Pathways for Youth Boys and Girls Club, both in the Bronx, have been successfully transferred to other providers without disruption of services.

On Friday, June 24th, New York City’s Department of Investigation announced that Gloria Wise and Pathways for Youth had been determined “Non-Responsible City contractors” based on an on-going investigation “concerning allegations that, among other things, officials of Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various City agencies.”

Gloria Wise’s Executive Director Charles Rosen and Assistant Executive Director Jeffrey Aulenbach have both resigned, according to an agency spokesperson.

As a result of the ongoing investigation, programs operated under contracts with the Department for Youth and Community Development (DYCD) and the Department for the Aging (DFTA) have been transferred to other providers.

Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA) is now operating three senior centers in Co-Op City as well as NORC and EISEP programs. “The Bartow, Dreiser and Einstein Senior Centers serve approximately 210 seniors daily,” says Christopher Miller, a DFTA spokesperson. “That transition has been going very well. There has been no disruption in services to seniors.”

“We started providing service on July 5th with the current staff,” says Aileen Gitelson, CEO at JASA.

DYCD transferred a total of seven programs – four Beacons as well as individual Summer Youth Employment (SYEP), In-School Youth (ISY) and Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention (YDDP) programs. Alianza Dominicana is now operating the MS 201 Beacon. Police Athletic League is operating the IS 192 Beacon. Mosholou Montefiore has taken over Beacon programs at MS 142 and JHS 113. Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club is operating the SYEP program. SOBRO has taken over the ISY program and Alliance of Guardian Angels received the YDDP operation.

“There were no problems,” says Michael Ognibene, DYCD Chief of Staff. “As of July 5th, everything that should have been operating was operating.”

Information on the transfer of programs under contract with the Department of Education was not yet available.

In many cases, it appears that the program staff from Gloria Wise and Pathways for Youth will continue to provide services under the new management. “The people who have been working there have been offered jobs,” says Gitelson. “There is a place for everyone who wants to stay.”


******


Agency Expresses Pride and Regret; Vows to Continue Camp and Pre-School

A Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club spokesperson released the statement following announcement of the DOI investigation and the termination of its City contracts:

“All of us at Gloria Wise Community Center are proud of our decades-long service in the Bronx. We deeply regret that, as a result of errors in judgment by the former Gloria Wise executive director, which did not result in improper personal gain by anyone associated with Gloria Wise, New York City has terminated its funding to our organization, as of June 30… The Goosebay Nursery programs, however, will continue, as well as the Gloria Wise Summer Camp programs that have been operating for decades. We are committed to maintaining our relationship with Bronx residents–particularly those in Co-op City–and hope that our quality services and programs, which are greatly needed in this community, will be continued.”

[stocksthatgoup]

btt

[26lemoncharlie]

These loans should be paid back immediately along with the
ineterst that hasaccrued. If the "LOANS" are paid back over the next two years - then the principle and the INTEREST that has accrued or will accrue over the next two years must be paid back. On no way should AA be allowed to profit from these "LOANS".

[kcvl]

Saturday, July 30, 2005 1:02 p.m. EDT

'Camp Air America' Still Soliciting

After first denying a relationship, the liberal radio network Air America has finally owned up to its ties to a New York City program for poor kids that was so badly mismanaged that the city withdrew funding last month.

But NewsMax.com has learned that a key part of that program, Camp Air America, is still soliciting funds on the Internet, despite the radio network's announcement that it was severing all ties to the camp's parent organization, the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club.

In June, city investigators found that Gloria Wise officials "approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies."

On Friday the bosses of lefty firebreathers Al Franken, Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy acknowledged a past relationship with Gloria Wise, saying, "we recently allowed the same club, Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, to use our name in a fundraising effort for a summer camp for children in their community"

That's a shift from Air America's statement issued the day before in response to questions from the New York Post's John Mainelli and Dave Seifman, which insisted there was no ongoing relationship:

"Piquant [the network's current parent company] had no involvement whatsoever with funds from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. Piquant neither received nor expended any of the sums that are the subject of the city's investigation of the club."

In Air America's latest version of events, however, the ties that used to bind have now been severed - including the network's relationship to Gloria Wise's Camp Air America.

"The funding for Camp Air America was raised and collected entirely by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, and Air America promoted the camp on air and urged support for it," the network's Friday statement acknowledged. "A link on our web site sent those interested in contributing to the camp to the Gloria Wise web site. Regrettably, the camp did not survive the closure of the Gloria Wise organization."

The camp didn't survive Gloria Wise's closure?

Not according to the Gloria Wise web site, which, as of Saturday afternoon, was not only still in business - it was still touting Camp Air America and soliciting donations via a mailing address, still-working phone number and handy Pay Pal link.

In fact, Gloria Wise's online outlet still hails what it describes as: "The Camp Air America Experience":

"Camp Air America is located on Lake Stahahe among the 46,000 wooded acres of Harriman State Park, just 40 miles north of New York City. The air is clean and dry. Typically the summer days are warm and the nights are cool. An ideal site for a summer camp."

Clicking through the links, supporters are invited to sponsor an array of activities by offering up donations of $35 to $750. The larger donation is supposed to pay for "a life changing week" at Camp Air America for two children of the same family.

What's more, as of Saturday afternoon, the Gloria Wise web site was still trading on its ties to Air America, explaining that morning hosts Marc Maron and Mark Riley "will be helping to raise money for Camp Air America this June and July."

Undoubtedly the folks at Air America will prevail on Gloria Wise to have any and all mentions of the network removed from its web site - hopefully sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, however, donors who don't know about the Gloria Wise fundraising controversy are still being solicited in Air America's name.

[riri]

All I want to know is...how much longer before it is off the air. I will celebrate that day they are forced to retreat back into the land of failed liberal radio attempts...

[kcvl]

Air America was started as part of Progress Media, which said it had amassed $30 million in venture capital prior to its debut, a claim which later turned out to be untrue (only $6 million was initially collected). Two individuals from Guam, Rex Sorensen and Evan Montvel Cohen, were involved in raising the capital but denied any wrongdoing. Cohen had an unusual history for his position in a progressive-left radio network since he was a Republican political operative in Guam and former chief of staff for Republican Governor Tommy Tanaka. Cohen dismissed concerns by saying he was a committed "progressive" and that Republicans in Guam "are left of Paul Wellstone." It was reported that Cohen had unpaid business debts in Guam, although Cohen denies this. Tommy Tanaka pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2003.


Form 990 filed by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club for the period ending June 2003 (doesn't list anything about Air America!)


http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2003/133/287/2003-133287608-1-9.pdf

[Plutarch]

Why, according to the Elliot Spitzer web site, Attorney General Spitzer is the public’s champion and a zealous defender of justice regarding the accountability of charities. I don’t see any exceptions for Democrat political causes.

New Yorkers donate billions to charity every year. The Attorney General's Charities Bureau is responsible for supervising charitable organizations to insure that donors and beneficiaries of those charities are protected from unscrupulous practices in the solicitation and management of charitable assets. The Bureau also supervises the activity of foundations and other charities to insure that their funds and other property devoted to charitable purposes are properly used. The Trusts and Estates Section protects the interest of the public as ultimate beneficiaries of gifts and bequests contained in wills, trust agreements, deeds and corporate charters. The Bureau is also responsible for monitoring charitable registrations as mandated by law.

The most likely explanation for the inactivity from Attorney General Spitzer’s office is that The New York Times hasn’t published a story about the scandal. Just as suspects in Aruba know that “No body, No Crime”, Spitzer knows that “No NYT article, no scandal”.

[kcvl]

Funds of a Bronx Youth Group Allegedly Lent to Air America

BY DAVID LOMBINO - Special to the Sun
August 1, 2005

The top executive at a Bronx youth organization said yesterday that the former director of Air America Radio received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and the radio network from the nonprofit organization while serving as its development director.

Some of the transfers, according to the president of the Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club organization's executive committee, Jeannette Graves, occurred when the development director, Evan Montvel Cohen, who for a time served simultaneously as the liberal radio network's director, appealed to the organization for two loans worth $35,000. Another member of the executive committee said Mr. Cohen told the executive director of the organization that he needed the money to pay for chemotherapy for himself and other medical expenses for his ill father.

Ms. Graves said that Mr. Cohen also received another $213,000 loan for Air America in a check that was approved without her authorization and stamped with an imprint of her signature, and that the club wired more than $400,000 to him without her knowledge.


More...

http://www.nysun.com/article/17846