Wycelf Jean’s charity under scrutiny....again

by Gary Snyder


You may remember that Wycelf Jean’s charity was in the headlines for not filing the legal docs. Then the next year it also lost nearly $250,000 in 2009 for reasons that are unclear. Now Yele Haiti is showing less than one third of the $16 million in donations from 2010 was used for earthquake relief efforts. While overspending is not that uncommon, the spending raised some interest. 


Based on the charity's tax filings from 2010, $1 million was paid to a non-existent  firm, Amisphere Farm Labor Inc. to distribute food, but records do not show its existence. Another $353,983 was doled out to P&A Construction, a company headed by Jean's brother-in-law Warnel Pierre. The charity also gave $250,000 to a Haitian television station run by Jean. Yele Haiti also paid $577,185 to a company called Samosa SA, based in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, as a “bulk water supplier.” But some of that money went to rent a house for Yele Haiti volunteers on Samosa’s property at the inflated price of $35,000 a month.






Nonprofit Imperative gathers its information principally from public documents...some of which are directly quoted. Virtually all cited are in some phase of criminal proceedings; some have not been charged, however. Cites in various media: Featured in print, broadcast, and online media outlets, including: Vermont Public Radio, Miami Herald, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, The Sun News, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Wall Street Journal (Profile, News and Photos), FOX2, ABC Spotlight on the News, WWJ Radio, Ethics World, Aspen Philanthropy Newsletter, Harvard Business Review, Current Affairs, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, St. Petersburg Times, B, USA Today Topics, , Newsweek.com, Responsive Philanthropy Magazine, New York Times...and many more • Nonprofits: On the Brink (iUniverse, 2006)