Slowly but surely we are getting the facts on Evan Cohen and Air America… and it ain’t pretty. The New York Sun looks into the story and they are starting to find the rest of the iceberg:
Funds of a Bronx Youth Group Allegedly Lent to Air America
The top executive at a Bronx youth organization said yesterday that the former director of Air America Radio received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and the radio network from the nonprofit organization while serving as its development director.
Some of the transfers, according to the president of the Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club organization’s executive committee, Jeannette Graves, occurred when the development director, Evan Montvel Cohen, who for a time served simultaneously as the liberal radio network’s director, appealed to the organization for two loans worth $35,000. Another member of the executive committee said Mr. Cohen told the executive director of the organization that he needed the money to pay for chemotherapy for himself and other medical expenses for his ill father.
Well, I guess we can dispense with the pleasantries of calling this an “investment.”
Ms. Graves said that Mr. Cohen also received another $213,000 loan for Air America in a check that was approved without her authorization and stamped with an imprint of her signature, and that the club wired more than $400,000 to him without her knowledge. …
Ms. Graves said Air America has agreed in writing to pay back the full amount of more than $800,000 in installments over the next two years. It is unclear whether the funds allegedly obtained from Gloria Wise were ultimately received or spent by Air America.
HUH? This severely strains credulity. We are to believe that Air America never got the $800,000+ but they are going to write a check for it out of the goodness of their heart? I know the paper must use words like “allegedly” but Stevie Wonder could see this a mile away.
And who wired almost a half a million dollars without the president of the executive committee knowing about it? (* cough wire-fraud cough*)
Initially, members of the executive committee viewed Mr. Cohen fondly because he had thrown a tremendously successful fund-raising affair for Gloria Wise in Manhattan last year. They recalled being impressed by the wealthy clientele and the large sums of money he raised, according to Ms. Graves.
Because of that confidence in Mr. Cohen, she said, the executive committee approved two loans to Air America, one for $80,000 and another for $87,000.
Ms. Capell said she had met Mr. Cohen several times.
“He was very suave, a very wonderful young man. He left a very favorable impression,” she said in a telephone interview.
After the initial two loans, Ms. Graves said that just before the launch of Air America her organization lent the network another $213,000, authorized with a rubber stamp of her signature on a document she said she never saw. More recently, Ms. Graves said, Gloria Wise made a wire transfer of at least $400,000 to Air America without her knowledge.
In addition, according to Ms. Graves, the longtime executive director of Gloria Wise, Charles Rosen, later told the board he had lent an additional $35,000 of the organization’s funds to Mr. Cohen for medical expenses. According to Ms. Capell, the board member, Mr. Cohen told Mr. Rosen he needed $25,000 to pay for chemotherapy. Mr. Cohen told associates that he recovered from brain cancer, according to Ms. Capell. Later, Mr. Cohen asked for $10,000 – which he was lent – be cause his father, a businessman in Asia, was “gravely ill,” Ms. Capell said. …
Gloria Wise received personal checks in various amounts from Mr. Cohen to pay back some of the loans, but Ms. Graves said the checks did not clear. The executive committee dismissed him when members learned of some of his actions, according to another member of the executive committee, John Rose.
This really is damning. I’m not a lawyer or a prosecutor and I think I see about 10 potential violations here. This “apparently phoney” scandal is serious enough that Air America is willing to part with almost a million dollars to make it go away.
The president of the executive committee’s willingness to talk the media is just more bad news for Cohen and Air America. It is sounding more and more like this was not an “investment” but a “scam.” And a big one.
I think we should have a call to action… I think callers to Air America should demand that their multi-millionaire talk stars refuse to cash their paychecks until the children are given their money back… Millionaire liberals would NEVER take money from children would they?
It’s interesting that INFOHAZARD and other liberals say that he’s a “GOP operative”. Actually the information says that he was a
Republican (while in Guam) and like bullwinkle says Cohen assured everyone that Republicans are to the left of Wellstone.
It’s as if INFOHAZARD and other liberals think this will smear or embarrass conservatives, or are they hoping that they can spin this as “poor Democrats, we were taken advantage of by those evil, nasty Republicans. It’s their fault this happened.”
The fault lies soled with Cohen and the other owners, board members and investors. Not only are they responsible for all aspects of their business, but Cohen was indited for tax evasion in Guam and there are reports that a defunct ad agency he owed in Guam owes $20,000 plus 4 years rent and employees health insurance premiums. Cohen, of course, denies this.
I would think a background check would have done before allowing him to deal with raising funds and day-to-day financial concerns. We aren’t talking about petty cash here, we’re talking about millions of dollars.
“Faith+1 said:
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Hehe, stealing from children in order to raise ratings from shit to shit with added stink….classic. Personally, I’m waiting to see how they will blame this on Rove…
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Dude, that was soooo yesterday.”
I stand corrected. The Rove nuts beat me to it.
Oh, and as to the ones saying Air America isn’t really involved and is only paying it back out of the goodness of their hearts because they don’t have to? PUHLEZZZE! You really buy that crap? They are so guilty and only paying it back in hopes the indictments don’t rain down on a whole slew of their members.
The fact is they don’t know how to run a business without government handouts. Profit is inconceivable to them. They are trying to sell a product most of America doesn’t want. Since they can’t get government handouts they either steal from their employees (by not payiong them) or from a kid’s fund. That’s not being made up. It’s fact. Then again facts mean little to the left…
most of America doesn’t want
That’s true. They have a possible listener base of a meager 59,028,109 people.
They should take the show on the road and go to China, just imagine, a possible audience of over a billion where some of their ideas might actually bring about improvements. It shouldn’t take much to change the logo to Air China.
Hee hee, Jim Jones wrote above:
“In fact, George Soros was created solely to fund left-wing causes.”
Right you are, and since you mentioned $oros, did you know that Plame contributed to Soros front group, “Americans Coming Together”? How sexy.
Ha, Watergate’s famous phrase “Follow the Money” is backfiring all over the place. It would be interesting to know who the big donors to the Girls and Boys club were just before those loans to Air America.
lin made some irronious assumptions about my post. Read it again. I made it quite clear that Cohen is the problem here, and he rips off Dems and Repubs alike.
I’m from the Radical Center, myself.
You have to be fucking kidding me.
You’re quoting a story from the New York Sun?
Get real you fucking losers.
We’re seeing the death of the great Democratic Donkey. It’s been flopping around for some time, but now all four legs are in the air and it’s in convulsions. 2008 will be the year the donkey finally dies.
The heat is on: 8/11/05 article:
[Three more execs from the Gloria Wise group have resigned: Director Charles Rosen, acting executive director Lorraine Corva and assistant executive director Jeff Aulenback:]
“‘The [city] Department of Investigation advised Air America to repay $875,000 into an escrow account from which no money can be disbursed without our approval,’ DOI spokeswoman Emily Gest told the Post. ‘Air America has not followed that recommendation.’ ” [Instead, Air America’s own lawyer is taking charge of “escrow.”]
“In addition to the DOI, New York’s Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has also opened a probe into the case.“