Posted on 08/01/2005 12:19:33 PM PDT by 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.
Well, at least garafolo has that successful acting career to go back to.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If NPO funds were diverted like this for political purposes, this IS a big story. Funny how a year ago the MSM was drenched with hyped-up garbage about Rush, but can't spare a drop of ink for this.
Remember...it's only a scandal IF
(a) it involves Republicans
(b) the MSM chooses to report on it
Until hell freezes over is my guess.
Jeanette Graves is the director of consitutent services for Bronx City Councilmember Larry Seabrook.
Jeanette Graves has been named by Larry Seabrook’s Committee on Vacancies to replace him on the ballot.
Hugh Hewitt website...
The Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club IRS Form 990
July 29, 2005 04:40 PM PST
Form 990s are filed by all not-for-profits. They are public documents. Here's the one for the Gloria Wise Community Center for the period ending June 30, 2003. Still looking for a more recent filing.
BTW: 18 USC Section 1001 is The False Statements Act. That's why such forms as this one (and all of Air America's filings) had better accurately reflect the realities of the organizationn's finances.
It appears that --in the year ending June 30, 2003, the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club had little investment income --$21,596-- which makes it odd indeed that the group would make a huge "investment" the following year. It also appears that in the year covered by the 990, the group got $3,774,920 from government gants, and only $529,740 from the public in the form of contributions. (It also earned $562,095 from services which people paid for.)
Note Line 54 --the Club had no investments this year. None.
This is strange indeed. If contributions from the public remained relatively constant from this year to next, the Club would have been "investing" almost all of their non-government funding in Air America. Every government grant I have ever seen specifically addresses the purposes for which it must be used, and I have never seen one that authroizes investments in rickety politicla start-ups.
Wow, and wow again. Where is Elliot Spitzer. What did Al Franken know and when did he know it?
Read this IRS Reg on "Inurement." This is the source for a lot of conflicts investigations in the not-for-profit world.
******
Here is the web site for the Gloria Wise Community Center. Here's the link to the Center's Camp Air America. What do campers learn? Creative accounting.
Here's the budget info on the web site:
Staff:
181 full-time
548 part-time
Budget managed:
$17.2 million
Budget distribution:
Pre-school: 22%
Youth services: 48%
Camp: 3%
Older Adults services 12%
Administration: 13%
Development: 2%
******
Here's the transcript of the CNN "Inside Politcs" segment on Air America's Children's Crusade:
JOHNS: Air America Radio is attracting a lot of attention from bloggers today. For more on that, let's check in with CNN political producer Abbi Tatton, and Jacki Schechner, our blog reporter -- Jacki.
SCHECHNER: Hi, Joe.
Well, many of the conservative bloggers are talking about a New York investigation into the possible diversion of funds from an inner city Boys and Girls Club to the liberal radio station Air America. This started with Brian Maloney over at TheRadioEqualizer.blogspot.com.
He picked up a small mention as part of a larger article in the "New York Daily News." And as part of that article, it turns out that the former CEO of Air America was also on the board of that Boys and Girls Club. And that's where the investigation continues right now into what sort of diversion of funds may have taken place.
TATTON: Working with Brian Maloney on the store is Michele Malkin at MicheleMalkin.com. She's been really pushing it. This is a blogger driven story that she feels is not getting enough coverage in the mainstream media.
Michele has been linking to statements put out from Air America on this case. What they're essentially saying is the funds in question that are being investigated were to previous business owners of Air America, that they have nothing to do with those preview business owners and so they are not responsible for what's going on here.
The debate carrying on at DailyKos.com, whether webmaster of Air America, that's Adam Mordecai, is posting the most recent statement saying that they have no obligation to the previous business owners, but their still working with the Boys and Girls Club. And very much the Boys and Girls Club very much has the support of Air America.
SCHECHNER: That did not stop the conservative blogs from posting all sorts of headlines like "Al Franken Steals Money From Kids and Old Folks" or things like JackLewis.net, "Liberals Stealing From Poor Kids." They really, you could take your pick of blogs on this one. That sort of vein.
But over at the larger blogs like WhizbangBlog.com, they're doing what Michele Malkin and what Brian are doing, and they're looking deeper into the statement from Air America saying whatever the answers are at this point, it's not enough for them. And they are going to continue to push the investigation.
Joe, we will send it back to you.
If you have a self-styled major media network, which has all along maintained that it is well funded, and an increasingly commercial success, and paying Al FRanken near $1 mill a year, ..unable to IMMEDIATELY return $800k that it illegally obtained, and from a non-prodit Boys and Girls organization to boot..well..sounds to me like they have HUGE $$$$ problems....What would AA say if, oh, for example..Tom Delay got an illegal $100k campaign contribution in a similar manner, but announced that he would promise to pay it back over 2 years..
Good heavens. Another article I read early on mentioned how the youth day camp was involved with fund raising for Err America.
yes, Camp Air America, that's what I read about before.
So, they're still milking donations through it...lovely.
if the blame comes down on Cohen it will be no big deal...he's already been discredited and left Err America a while ago....what needs to be investigated and found is a link from this loan to a present day Err America employee....some dirtbag like Randi Rodent, Franken or Garofolo...
Tommy Tanaka (so-called R-Guam) plead guilty to corruption charges and Cohen was his chief of staff. Man, this just keeps getting better. I wonder if there's a background story on Rex Sorensen? Why does the name Sorensen sound familiar?
Whiney CNN blog reporter, LOL!
Just proves the point that some people with money are just as stupid as the ingrate left who wander the streets.
Err America promised to pay the loan back. They made no such move to repay one penny until this scandal story broke.
I'd say there's quite a lot of 'splainin' that needs to come from AA.
"Garafolo": the sound my sister's cat makes when it coughs up a hair-ball.
NYP had an article in their Sunday edition. I have not seen todays NYP.
That's what I thought. Jeez.
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