Right after the first National Rifle Association federal bankruptcy court hearing, New York’s attorney general By Letitia James (D) office told a judge not to allow the weapons group to attempt to delay dissolution procedures.
James Sheehan, the head of the Attorney General’s Charity Office, denounced the delay requested by the NRA in these efforts through its federal bankruptcy process as a joke.
“The NRA’s apparent attempt to automatically suspend this action by filing a bankruptcy suggestion notice is exactly the type of procedural abuse that the simultaneous exercise of jurisdiction by state and federal courts is intended to alleviate,” Sheehan wrote in a letter on Wednesday .
Less than a week ago, on January 15, the NRA announced that it was “DUMPING New York” by “using bankruptcy court protection” to re-establish itself as a Texas nonprofit. Federal bankruptcy proceedings are advancing rapidly in the Northern District of Texas, where a hearing has been scheduled for 2 pm central time.
The troubled armed group has been fighting for its life since the New York attorney general filed a 163-page complaint accusing four of its current and former directors of “widespread and systemic illegal conduct”.
Claiming that the NRA leader Wayne LaPierre used the group as a “personal piggy bank”, the process detailed his travels by private jet to the tropics and safaris in Africa with donor money. The attorney general accused NRA executives of pocketing millions for their personal benefit, filing false regulatory documents, awarding no-show contracts to loyal people and retaliating against whistleblowers.
When the NRA claimed to be resigning in New York, James emphasized that his search for the group would not end.
“The alleged financial situation of the NRA has finally reached its moral status: bankruptcy,” wrote James in a statement at the time. “While we are analyzing this process, we will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to escape the responsibility and oversight of my office.”
James made it clear that the NRA’s bankruptcy filing is in conflict with his declared financial health.
“The NRA has expressly stated that it has been trying to leave New York, its state of incorporation for almost 150 years, to escape the authority of this Court and the supervision of the Attorney General, whom it falsely accuses of ‘an abuse of legal and regulatory power’ ”Says the five-page letter. “The NRA claims that its bankruptcy filing is not financially motivated, claiming that the organization ‘is in its strongest financial condition in years'”.
The NRA does not have offices in Texas, but has affirmed the location through an affiliate, Sea Girt, LLC, the attorney general said.
Bankruptcy proceedings typically interrupt enforcement actions like these, but James says his action falls under two exceptions designed to protect the public from fraud and the abuse of a charity from its charity status. This is how your office described this exception:
With respect to the pecuniary purpose test, none of the Attorney General’s claims involves any interest on the part of the State of New York in property owned by the NRA, but instead seeks to enforce the state law governing the administration of the NRA as an institution licensed by the state nonprofit charity. Claims for financial restitution of charitable goods are only against individual defendants. Any money that the Attorney General retrieves will be returned to the NRA or, in the event of a judicial dissolution, used in accordance with the donor’s intention or the Court’s guidance and approval for a purpose substantially similar to the NRA’s mission. With regard to public policy testing, the Attorney General is not judging private rights against the NRA, but is applying the New York law designed to protect the public and indefinite beneficiaries of charity as a class of fraud and misconduct by institutions public charities.
If the NRA fails to interrupt New York proceedings, the group will go to court again on Thursday for a filing motion. His lawyer did not immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comments.
Read the NYAG letter below:
(Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images)
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