Local BLM Chapters Sue BLM Global Network Foundation for Fraud
By Mark Schwendau
A coalition of local Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapters called “Grassroots” have sued the BLM Global Network Foundation, a world nonprofit that came about after the protest movement against Trayvon Martin’s death by George Zimmerman. In 2013, three radical Black organizers, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, created the Black-centered political project #BlackLivesMatter. In 2020, the death of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin seemingly rocketed the organization to public prominence.
The project is reported to be a member-led global network of more than 40 local chapters which claim member organizations build power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the states and vigilantes. Thursday, 26 of those local BLM chapters filed a complaint in the US, UK, and Canada against the global foundation.
Shalomyah Bowers, the leader of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, is accused by former colleagues of stealing more than $10 million in donations from the organization for personal use, according to a lawsuit filed in court this week. Bowers was called a “rogue administrator; a middle man turned usurper” in the court filing who siphoned contributions from the nonprofit activist group to use as a “personal piggy bank,” according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday.
His actions led to the foundation being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and various state attorneys general, “blazing a path of irreparable harm to BLM in less than eighteen months,” the suit claims. “While BLM leaders and movement workers were on the street risking their lives, Mr. Bowers remained in his cushy offices devising a scheme of fraud and misrepresentation to break the implied-in-fact contract between donors and BLM.”
Regulators claim that the foundation, which collected donations in support of the BLM over the years, collected money from the operation of those branches, then mismanaged the funds and shut down local branches with no input in the decision-making process. The local chapters also claimed it was difficult to get any money back from the upper echelon for chapter operations and activities.
The local chapters included BLM affiliates in Los Angeles, Michigan, Atlanta, and Boston. They allege the foundation, which operates BlackLivesMatter.com, shut down their major BLM social media accounts.
They allege the foundation is not adhering to a plan laid out by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors when she resigned last year to terminate the foundation and transfer resources back to BLM local chapters.
“The assets we have built, the financial resources, social media platforms, and the Black Lives Matter name have been taken from us and are under the control of the advisors,” said Dr. Melina Abdallah, Director, and Partner of BLM Grassroots.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks damages and a temporary restraining order to prevent the foundation from using BLM’s accounts and website. The complaint filing mentions the foundation and Shlomiah Powers, a consultant whose company was paid $2 million by the foundation in the fiscal year 2020. Powers has served as board secretary and chief administrator, and the lawsuit accuses him of “unfair enrichment” since serving on the board while making money from the organization as an independent consultant.
Today, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation board members are listed as Cicely Gay, D’Zhane Parker, and Shalomyah Bowers.
BLM released a lengthy statement about the lawsuit on Thursday afternoon, calling the allegations “harmful, divisive, and false.” The foundation’s three-person board, which includes Powers, said it was wrong to suggest there was a plan to transfer all of the foundation’s assets to the local chapters. She reported a new social media policy had been implemented to make access more equitable. It requires people to submit content before it is posted. She said BLM chapters can still submit content. The board dismissed allegations that headquarters was making unilateral decisions, and the BLM accused chapters of trying to gain control of the corporate assets.
This legal case comes nine years after the hashtag BLM movement came to be after self-appointed community watchman George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin. BLM organized protests in Ferguson, Missouri, the following year. BLM groups across the country have supported families of black people killed by police, organizing mass demonstrations, fighting to hold police accountable, and starting the “Defund the Police” campaign, whereby they want many informed police officers replaced with social workers.
It comes after several years of tensions between local BLM chapter groups and national establishments. Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors secretly bought a swanky $6 million mansion in Los Angeles. According to the first public accounting of its finances, the New York Post reported Black Lives Matter spent millions on luxury properties in both Los Angeles and Toronto.
They reported:
“In Canada, Toronto-based non-profit M4BJ purchased a 10,000-square-foot downtown property for the equivalent of $6.3 million. The former headquarters of the Canadian communist party was named the Wildseed Centre for Art and Activism by Canadian BLM members who said it was purchased using cash from BLMGNF.”
“We demand accountability,” said Angela Austin, director of operations and policy and co-founder of BLM Michigan. She said her local chapter was unable to access social media accounts after the murder of Patrick Liuya in Grand Rapids. She also reported her chapter had received no commitment of continued funding from the foundation. “It’s overwhelming.”
SKETCHY FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES IN 2020
On February 16, 2022, the Washington Examiner reported BLM Global Network Foundation had used an unusual “accounting gimmick” to delay reporting what it had done with the $60 million fundraising haul the organization had collected during the summer of 2020. According to their report, the BLM Global Network Foundation made the unusual decision to switch its 12-month internal accounting cycle from a normal calendar year to a July-June fiscal year. By doing so, the BLM Global Network Foundation was able to delay reporting its activities in the latter in 2020. This is when it received most of its funding and then only disclosed sparse information on the first half of the year.
Laurie Styron, executive director of Charity Watch, a nonprofit watchdog group, told reporters, “To not know who is in charge of $60+ million collected by the national charity arm of arguably the most prominent social justice movement in the country is the worst transparency issue I have seen in my 18 years as a charity watchdog.”
The limited 2020 Form 990 did show during that time, BLM Global Foundation Network’s financial records were in the care of the Elias Law Group. This group is a Democrat-aligned law firm created by Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie partner who was head counsel for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. He helped fund the discredited Christopher Steele dossier that spawned the Mueller report’s later debunked Trump-Russia collusion story in 2016.
The release of these filings further revealed that Minyon Moore, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton and former chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), had joined the BLM Global Foundation Network on the board of directors.
The Washington Examiner reported Elias and Moore’s appearance in the organization’s public disclosures signaled BLM Global Foundation Network and its funds had been taken over by “Clintonworld” during 2020.
Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, which publishes Influence Watch, said, “The latest filing’s addition of partisan lawyer Marc Elias confirms the group is more political than charitable…”.
BLM MAKES SEVEN DEMANDS IN 2021
In May of 2021, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation released a list of seven demands. Those demands were all related to Congress enacting radical left-wing policies punishing Republicans in Congress, former President Donald Trump, and police forces across the country.
First among their demands was the immediate conviction of former President Donald Trump by the Senate and a permanent ban on his holding of any elected office in the future. Their demand did not specify what Trump did wrong.
Their second demand called for “Republican members of Congress who attempted to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist attack” to be expelled from Congress. This demand referenced the efforts of Republican senators to oppose the certification of the contested 2020 election results and the riots that occurred at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Their third demand called for an investigation into supposed ties between white supremacy and the Capitol Police, law enforcement, and the military. This demand did not list any particular white supremacist organizations whose supposed ties should be investigated.
Their fourth demand called for former President Donald Trump to be permanently banned from all social media platforms because he used social media platforms like Twitter to “incite violence and promote its continuation.” Again, no examples were given.
Their fifth demand called for Congress to “Defund the Police.” Their demand was intentionally vague about exactly what “defunding the police” entailed. They simply wrote, “more funding is not the solution.” They mentioned the January 6 Capitol riot as proof.
Their sixth demand called for a freeze on further anti-terrorism laws like the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021. They claimed that without evidence, such laws are used by a racist police force to target minority communities and trample on civil rights instead of stopping terrorism.
Their seventh demand calls for passage of the BREATHE Act. This is a radical left-wing omnibus police reform bill created by the Black Lives Matter Electoral Justice Project, a 501(c) project of the Movement for Black Lives.
CONCLUSION:
Most Americans believe “black lives matter” as much as any other life. What they do not believe in is a supposed charitable organization operating as a pyramid scheme. one in which little is spent on the supposed charity, and much is lavished on those at the top with little to no accountability other than to themselves.
Copyright © 2022 by Mark S. Schwendau
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Mark S. Schwendau is a retired technology professor who has always had a sideline in news-editorial writing where his byline has been, “Bringing little known news to people who simply want to know the truth.” He classifies himself as a Christian conservative who God cast as a realist. Mark is an award-winning educator who has published seven books and numerous peer-reviewed trade journal articles, some of which can be found on the Internet. His father was a fireman/paramedic, while his mother was a registered nurse. He holds multiple degrees in technology education, industrial management, OSHA Safety, and Driver’s Education. His personal website is www.IDrawIWrite.Tech.
So now we are finding out that Black Lives Matter was just another Democrat Political Scam designed to con people out of Money. Who Knew?
If BLM really cared they would be pushing Big Blue City Mayors for more police and getting drugs and gangs off the streets permanently. BLM was started when a Black Man attacked a Hispanic Man for being Gay. It was his girlfriend who told him that Zimmerman was probably Gay. Why are Black people so homophobic? Then BLM held riots all over America for a Black Man, on drugs, resisting arrest dying at the hands of police. This was really a case of Suicide by Cop because if Floyd wasn’t on drugs or resisting arrest there would be a good chance he would be alive today.
Blacks need to get their shit together. Stop crying about predigest, slavery, being poor, being a victim, and police arresting them. You are poor because you allowed the Democrat LBJ to enact policies that broke up the Black Family. Blacks have convinced themselves and others that a Black Welfare Mom family is a good thing. Black men don’t take responsibility as Fathers. Blacks don’t get an education and so can’t get a good job. Blacks seem to love the drug culture, the prostitution culture and are always buying lottery tickets hoping to get rich quick. There is a reason that the whole continent of Africa is a 3rd World. Blacks in America have no hope of being anything but 3rd World because they think like that. That’s all they know! Blacks in America have a reasonable chance of success, but you just call my Black Friends who have gotten with the program, got educated, and worked hard “Uncle Tom” or an “Oreo”. Who are the predigest people here? It’s certainly not the White race in America who has spent Trillions on trying to get Blacks out of Poverty and into main stream America. Yes. some Government policies need to be changed, but that change need to come from the Black Community, but too many Blacks are scared to lose the crumbs the Democrat Politicians give them.
WOW! Powerful comment of truth.
Well, I won’t say you are wrong but I approach this BLM business from a different perspective. Both of these black men would be alive today if these supposed “charities” had taught them not to resist arrest by law enforcement. If they were legit, and I do not think they are, that would be their number one goal and it is not.
They kill each other and now they screw each other over in business. Shocking!