By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2024-11-25 23:46:24 | Updated at 2024-11-26 01:41:16
2 hours ago
An anti-police activist misused more than $75,000 in donations to pay for a lavish Cancun vacation and several shopping sprees and stiffed his sole employee out of “tens of thousands of dollars in earned wages,” the attorney general for Washington, DC, alleged on Monday.
DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued Brandon Anderson and his “police transparency and accountability” nonprofit organization, Raheem AI, for allegedly violating the District’s workers’ rights and charity group laws, claiming that the “Defund the Police” backer used charitable funds “to support his luxurious lifestyle.”
“Brandon Anderson misused charitable donations to fund lavish vacations and shopping sprees, and the Raheem AI Board of Directors let him get away with it,” Schwalb said in a statement.
“Not only did their financial abuses violate fundamental principles of nonprofit governance, but Anderson and Raheem AI failed to pay their employee the wages they had earned,” the attorney general added. “My office will not allow people to masquerade behind noble causes while violating the law, cheating taxpayers, or stealing from their workers.”
Anderson, a self-described advocate for police abolition, founded Raheem AI in 2017 with the goal of equipping “black, brown, and indigenous community crisis responders with the tools, training, connections, and funding they need to provide care.”
Raheem AI sought to create an emergency dispatch app that would allow people wary of police to bypass calling 911 during a time of crisis.
Anderson’s nonprofit received more than $4.3 million in donations before its app project “fizzed,” according to the New York Times.
Jasmine Banks, a former Raheem AI staffer, told the outlet in August that she discovered credit card records detailing Anderson’s lavish spending after the nonprofit stopped paying her salary.
Schwalb alleges that since 2021, Anderson has raided Raheem AI’s coffers for personal use.
The complaint against Anderson and Raheem AI details over $40,000 in spending on mansion and penthouse apartment rentals, $10,000 on personal travel, including a trip to a Cancun resort, a $10,000 “executive Director clothing allowance” used on purchases from luxury retailers such as Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Bloomingdales, Farfetch and Saks and $5,000 on emergency veterinary services.
The lawsuit also alleges that Anderson and Raheem AI violated the District’s Nonprofit Corporation Act, Wage Payment and Collection Law and Ban on Noncompete Agreements Act.
Raheem AI has not had a treasurer since 2020, according to the complaint, “giving Anderson unrestricted control of its finances.”
“The Board of Directors also failed to implement any measures to oversee the organization’s finances, including Anderson’s corruption,” according Schwalb.
Raheem AI has also not paid Banks “tens of thousands of dollars in earned wages” since April, when she informed the nonprofit’s board of directors about Anderson’s potentially illegal conduct, according to the DC AG.
The lawsuit notes that Banks was also allegedly forced to sign an “illegal” noncompete clause as part of the terms of her employment.
“It hurts my heart to say it, but I think it was a con from the beginning,” Banks told the New York Times in August about Raheem AI and Anderson.
Anderson did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
