A nonprofit adjacent to the “defund the police” movement and its founder are in trouble after being accused by the D.C. attorney general of spending tens of thousands of dollars on luxury travel and services and failing to pay employees. is forced to stand.
Monday, District of Columbia Attorney General's Office. announced a lawsuit Raheem AI, a nonprofit dedicated to so-called police reform and accountability, and its founder and executive director Brandon Anderson.
“My office will not tolerate people breaking the law, defrauding taxpayers, or stealing from workers under the guise of a noble cause.”
Since 2021, Anderson is said to have spent $75,000 in donations to Raheem AI for “personal use.” AG press release he claimed. His lavish spending includes $40,000 on luxury vacation rentals, $10,000 on Cancun and other “personal trips,” $10,000 on designer clothing, and even $5,000 for emergency vet bills. It is said that
Meanwhile, Raheem AI's board of directors apparently did little to stop these questionable spending sprees. First, since 2020, the nonprofit organization has not had an independent treasurer to manage its finances and oversee spending as required by law, the press release alleges. The board also allegedly “failed to take steps to oversee the organization's finances, including Mr. Anderson's corruption.”
Finally, Raheem AI appears to have only one DC-based employee. new york post The company, identified as Jasmine Banks, failed to pay her “tens of thousands of dollars in earned wages,” the press release states. The organization also allegedly forced Banks to sign a non-compete clause, even though non-compete clauses are illegal in D.C. for employees like Banks who earn less than $150,000.
In filing the lawsuit, the D.C. attorney general will dissolve Raheem AI, recover the improperly spent funds and the bank's alleged lost wages, and prevent Mr. Anderson from ever leading the D.C. nonprofit again. I'm thinking of doing it.
“Brandon Anderson misused charitable donations to fund lavish vacations and shopping, but Raheem AI's board let him go,” Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement.
Schwalb's statement also suggested that while the police reform called for by Raheem AI was a “noble cause,” the organization was using it to shield it from proper oversight.
“My office will not tolerate those who violate the law, defraud taxpayers, or steal from workers under the guise of a noble cause.”
Anderson did not respond to The Post's request for comment on the lawsuit.
“Individual expenditures are easily mischaracterized without context.”
said Banks, who no longer works for Raheem AI. new york times Back in August, she said she now believes Anderson and his organization may have been the work of “con artists” from the beginning.
Anderson, who supports police abolition, founded Raheem AI in 2017, initially to develop an app that would allow victims to report police misconduct, and then to provide an alternative to 911 calls.
The organization is also focused on race, according to a press release, and will “empower crisis responders in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities with the tools, training, connections, and funding they need to provide care.” “I will,” he promises.
Anderson claimed to have named the organization after her boyfriend, who died during a “routine traffic stop” in Oklahoma in 2007. Anderson claimed the officers involved had a history of violence. However, the Times could not identify a murder victim named Raheem in Oklahoma, nor could it identify any alleged incidents of police brutality in that state that matched Anderson's description.
Ms. Banks claimed that Ms. Anderson's refusal to join a survivors' group led her to suspect that Mr. Anderson had never actually experienced police-related violence. “He didn't interact with other families who were affected. I always invite him, but he didn't do it,” she said.
Anderson told the Times that the accusations by Banks and others are “riddled with falsehoods,” but he did not provide specific examples. He also admitted that his plans for Raheem AI were a “failure.”
“It is easy to attribute failures to one cause or another in hindsight, and it is easy for individual expenditures to be mischaracterized out of context,” he said in a statement. “The bottom line is that it didn't work. As the leader of that effort, I share much of the blame.”
Raheem AI's board of directors recently “ceased operations” and placed Anderson on leave, according to a press release.
As of Tuesday morning, the organization's website said: raheem.orgis currently listed as “under construction.” The archived version claims that “police killings are the sixth leading cause of death for young black men in America.”
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