Phantom Charity Takes Flight, Leaves Veterans Stranded

[Stuart G]

http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/US_Navy_Veterans_Association.html

About a fake charity...long read, but the con artists are out there, here are some.
writting by:
American Institute of Philanthropy ..a charity watchdog..
December 2010 issue..Watchdog Report



The United States Navy Veterans Association (USNVA) certainly looked like a legitimate organization on the surface. This multi-million dollar charity, operating since 1927, was registered with the IRS, run by ex-military men, and had dozens of chapters and 66,000 members nationwide. Legitimate, that is, until media investigations revealed that the charity was not in operation until 2002, had only one member or charity official that could be located, was run out of an individual's duplex in Florida, and appears to have consisted of one man using a fake name for whom no record of U.S. military service could be found.

A man we will refer to as "John Doe" stole the name, social security number, and birth date of another man, Bobby Thompson, according to an August 2010 article in the Roanoke Times. He then used this fake identity to set up a sham charity and bilk donors out of nearly $100 million over a seven year period. Authorities have since charged him with identity fraud and issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest. "The real Bobby Thompson, whose identity was stolen…has absolutely no connection to the U.S. Navy Veterans Association," according to a news release on Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's website. While John Doe abandoned his former residence and has yet to be located by authorities, he will not soon be forgotten by the donors, government lobbyists, politicians, and fundraisers he had dealings with, or by his former lawyers and cohorts he left behind


Trouble started for John Doe when the St. Petersburg Times (SP Times) began a six-month investigation into USNVA in late 2009. When attempting to locate the charity's national headquarters using the same address the group filed on its tax form and listed on its web site, only a "rented mailbox…at a UPS shipping store" was found, according to the paper. The SP Times had no better luck when trying to locate many of the charity's chapters throughout the country, or any of the officers and directors reported on the charity's tax return and state registration documents. It found that "most state chapter addresses…also are rented mailboxes," and that "none of the three officers listed in Florida registration papers could be found." One officer's address was non-existent, one was the address for the Hilton hotel in Miami, and the last was the address of a condo owned by someone with a different name. Among other searches, the paper looked for the physical address of the commander of the New Mexico chapter, Howard Bonifacio, but found the address did not exist. If it did, it "would sit on a parking lot adjacent to a car dealership," reported the SP Times. For six months the paper conducted "hundreds of searches of directories, online public records databases and newspaper and broadcast stories going back more than 25 years" and reported it was unable to locate 84 of the 85 officers or directors named in the charity's IRS filings.

The only charity representative the paper could locate was John Doe, who apparently ran the charity's operations out of his Florida duplex, but he was not a big fan of transparency. "We are a great charity," he told the SP Times, citing the paper's "character assassination" and "McCarthy-like witch hunts" as an explanation for why the USNVA's state officers and executive board did not want to disclose their whereabouts or respond to the reporter's inquiries. Searches for the charity's internal auditor, Deborah Johns, were also unfruitful. The paper reported in its March 20th, 2010, article that when it asked USNVA for Johns' contact information, John Doe said the charity would release a copy of her audit when "pigs fly."

[katanalori]

1. by By Karl Bremer Oct. 2010

"Minnesota Attorney General's Office confirms investigation underway into U.S. Navy Veterans Association
AG joins seven other states, IRS and VA looking into shady nonprofit and its commander-on-the-lam, who donated thousands to Minnesota Republican politicians and Minnesota GOP"

"The group ran largely under the radar in Minnesota until a series of investigative reports I wrote beginning July 6 revealed that “Thompson” had donated $10,000 to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Stillwater on April 7, the same day as a Minneapolis fundraiser featuring former half-term governor Sarah Palin. One of the last known public appearances by Thompson may have been at the Bachmann-Palin event."

http://rippleinstillh2o.blogspot.com/2010/10/minnesota-attorney-generals-office.html