by Gary Snyder
A fundraising company that duped people into giving money to a
sham breast cancer charity will have to pay $3.1 million in restitution, a
state judge has ordered. Nearly all of that money will be given to legitimate
breast cancer charities through a fund set up by New York State Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman, who brought the case against Lindenhurst-based
Campaign Center Inc. and its principal, Garrett Morgan of West Islip.
A decision by Supreme Court
Judge Emily Pines in Suffolk, calling charitable fundraising scams "among
the lowest of the low." "This decision proves that New York
fundraisers will be held accountable when they defraud the public and line
their own pockets," he said in a statement.
Last month Pines issued a
summary judgment in civil court against the company and Morgan. She ordered the
company to close and permanently barred it from doing charitable fundraising in
New York. They had been charged with violating state laws in a scheme in which
telemarketers solicited donations for the charity Coalition Against Breast
Cancer.
Pines' decision said that from 2005 to 2011 the Campaign Center
raised $4.9 million on behalf of the charity but kept $3.9 million for itself.
The charity played on people's emotions to get them to donate money in the
hopes of fighting breast cancer, but little of the money ever went to research
or medical services, Schneiderman said
As previously noted in Nonprofit Imperative, the Coalition
Against Breast Cancer was shut down and its former directors -- treasurer
Andrew Smith, director of development Debra Koppleman and president Patricia
Scott -- in April agreed to pay $1.6 million in restitution and to never again
run a charity in the state. (Newsday)
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