Lawsuit Accusations
According to CNN, the leaders of BLM have sued an executive at Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (GNF), and has accused him of "syphoning" more than $10 million from donors for his own “personal piggy bank”, the grassroots arm of the BLM organization said in a court filing to Los Angeles County Superior Court this week. The lawsuit is against executive Shalomyah Bowers, as well as the foundation itself, Bowers' consulting firm and unnamed individuals; alleging a conspiracy to commit fraud against GNF and donors to fatten their own coffers and steal the organization from it’s founders.
When BLM exploded into the mainstream, Bowers was hired by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors in 2020 to help run the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (GNF), an extension yet seperate entity of the Black Lives Matter grassroots organization, the suit explained. GNF was originally created by Cullors "as an administrative organization to raise funds to provide financial support for local-level community efforts of BLM Grassroots," the suit said, while the BLM Grassroots organization did the "on-the-ground" work.
In September 2020, Cullors as previously stated hired Bowers and his firm to handle the administration at GNF. Cullors initially oversaw the GNF, but in May 2021 "decided she could no longer lead GNF and that it should wind down and transition the entire organization to BLM Grassroots," the suit said. “Ms. Cullors was able to step down based on the assurances made by Mr. Bowers that he would follow the transition plan, helping to administrate the process.” Cullors had announced this to the organization’s leaders and also appointed Dr. Melina Abdulla (co-founder of the Los Angeles BLM chapter) to Co-Director of BLM Grassroots. The suit claims Bowers made $2,167,894 million dollars from GNF in less than eight months, and that this is when he decided he didn’t want to lose his cash cow. He subsuquently started refusing to turn over important financial and organizational documents to the appointed co-senior executives Makanki Themba and Monifa Bandele, and within months had ran them out of the organization.
The court filing states, through a series of misrepresentations and unauthorized backdoor dealings, Bowers then became the sole Director and officer of GNF. He began to hire other board members from his own firm as well as even issued GNF grants to himself. He then allegedly locked the founders out of BLM’s shared social media accounts, email groups, website portals, and other organizing tools that BLM had built in its nearly ten years of existence. He next tried to "to register the trademark of BLM Grassroots using the logo and design of BLM Grassroots leader Angela Waters, in what appears to be an attempt to 'steal' the logo or prevent BLM Grassroots from utilizing." It further states that Bowers is using those stolen accounts to promote messages the organization doesn’t agree with and of Bowers having taken calculated steps to prevent resources from being used by BLM for on-the-ground movement work, including during the Buffalo Massacre in NY and the Jaylon Walker protests in Akron, Ohio.
When more than 300 movement leaders, as well as BLM Founders, insisted that he resign from GNF,” the complaint reads, “He continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties. His actions have led GNF into multiple investigations by the IRS and various state attorney generals, blazing a path of irreparable harm to BLM in less than eighteen months.”
“He then hired expensive, high-powered lawyers and media consultants to bully and harass the organizers and founders of BLM… Mr. Bowers continues to fraudulently raise money from unsuspecting donors passing himself off as the organization that is doing the work of BLM, padding his own pockets and that of his associates at the cost of BLM’s reputation,” the suit finalized.
The grassroots organization arm of the organization is asking for a jury trial and it seeks financial relief and a court order to halt GNF’s use of the BLM identity.