Grift Update: BLM Leader Accused Of Funneling More Than $10M To His Own Consulting Firm

The 2020 Summer of Riots was a prime time for grifters to capitalize on social justice virtue signaling. Black lives absolutely DO matter, as do ALL lives, including in-utero lives. But Black Lives Matter “Inc,” the supposedly non-profit organization that most successfully monetized public virtue signaling about black lives mattering, apparently doesn’t even care about the black lives that gave them tens of millions of dollars, or the black lives that were supposed to benefit from those tens of millions of dollars.

At the beginning of the year, there was an uproar when the public realized that BLM leaders apparently “jumped ship” amid accusations of corruption. Because it sure does look bad for your leader and founder to push an overtly socialist agenda in the name of racial equality and then turn around and spend millions of dollars made through capitalism to buy a house in very white elitist neighborhood and put a fence around it. Optics matter, and this looked really bad.

The Washington Examiner ran a story about how the tax forms for the BLM organization contained false information and that leadership refused to account for about $60 million in donations it had amassed. CharityWatch Executive Director Laurie Styron told the Washington Examiner,

“Like a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting in the night with no captain, no discernible crew, and no clear direction.”

Apparently Patrisse Cullors, the one who came under fire for her suspicious personal finances, “appointed two activists to serve as the group’s senior directors following her resignation in May amid scrutiny over her personal finances. But both quietly announced in September that they never took the jobs due to disagreements with BLM. They told the Washington Examiner they don’t know who now leads the nation’s most influential social justice organization.”

There were tens of millions of donated dollars with no apparent leadership or accountability for the money that hardworking Americans donated. Paul Kamenar, counsel for conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center, said,

“This is grossly irregular and improper for a nonprofit with $60 million in its coffers.”

And now, the story gets even more twisted. Shalomyah Bowers, the leader of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been accused of steeling more than $10 million from BLM, according to a lawsuit filed in court this week.

Former colleagues of Bowers allege that he “siphoned” more than $10 million-worth of donations from the organization under the guise of paying fees to his own Bowers Consulting Firm. That would be convenient, wouldn’t it? To run a wealthy organization that could then pay your own company $10M at your say-so.

The lawsuit was brought by Black Lives Matter Grassroots Inc, an organization launched just three months ago claiming to represent nationwide chapters of BLM. According to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court,

“Mr. Bowers decided he could not let go of his personal piggy bank. Instead, he continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties. Instead of using the donations for its intended purposes, Mr. Bowers diverted these donations to his own coffers and intentionally took calculated steps to prevent those same resources from being used by BLM for on-the-ground-movement work.”

Bowers predictably dismissed the allegations against him as being “a power move by someone hellbent on achieving power and control” over the BLM movement. He said that audits of the foundation have not revealed $10M going to him or his firm, and said,

“It’s the most insane thing I’ve read in a court pleading, and it’s signed under penalty of perjury when they know it’s a lie.” 

But it sure is suspicious that an organization amasses tens of millions of dollars worth of donations which are unaccounted for over the course of many months, and now there’s an allegation that at least ten million of those tens of millions were essentially embezzled by someone supposedly in a leadership role. I guess we’ll see how this new chapter in the BLM grift series unfolds.