Posted on 08/03/2005 9:12:11 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
After promising to pay back a nearly $1 million "loan" it obtained from a South Bronx community group that services poor children, the liberal radio network Air America now says the organization will have to wait for its money.
"We are waiting for direction from investigators on how to proceed," an Air America official told the New York Post on Wednesday - referring to a New York City Department on Investigations probe into "inappropriate transcations" by the group in question, the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club.
The news didn't sit well with Gloria Wise spokeswoman Matta Rose, who complained to the paper: "Air America reached a legal agreement to have the [Gloria Wise] loan repaid in full."
The trouble started last year, when former Gloria Wise development director Evan Cohen allegedly persuaded club officials to make the suspect $875,000 loan.
Cohen, it turns out, also helped found Air America - but left the network a month after its start amidst a wave funding problems.
After first denying any responsibility, the new owners of Air America promised the refund on Friday, in a statement still posted to the network's web site:
"We are very disturbed that Air America Radio's good name could be associated with a reduction in services for young people, which is why we agreed months ago to fully compensate the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club as a result of this transaction."
Top Air America talker Al Franken hasn't had much to say on the air about the Gloria Wise "loan" - but he went out of his way to trash Cohen in an interview Tuesday in the New York Sun.
Franken recalled that when Air America was launched in March 2004, Cohen told the staff they had enough funding to survive for three years without making a profit.
"It turned out to be three weeks," Franken lamented. "We were all shocked."
Franken said Cohen often cited health problems to explain why funds had dried up, recalling that when studio equipment wasn't working, Cohen would say, "You know, I have brain cancer."
"Brain cancer seemed to be his answer to everything." Franken complained.
Attempts by the Post and Sun to reach Mr. Cohen have been unsuccessful.
In its Friday statement, Air America said that because Gloria Wise is now under investigation, it was severing all ties to another Gloria Wise project, Camp Air America.
"We have offered any individuals who contributed to the camp as a result of Air America's promotion the option of a refund paid for by Air America Radio and the Club offered the alternative option of having their donation redirected to Kip's Bay Boys and Girls Club," the statement said, claiming that both Camp Air America and Gloria Wise had been closed.
But five days later, the Gloria Wise web site is still up and running - and still touting Camp Air America while soliciting contributions in the name of the network.
Air America listeners are invited to sponsor an array of activities by offering up donations of $35 to $750. The larger donation is supposed to pay for "a life changing week" at Camp Air America for two children of the same family.
Stealing and lying is the liberal way.
Now come on, even to a lay person, this seems like a least a few laws were broken here.
Why no fraud investigation by New York?
Can you imagine the media feeding frenzy this would be if Air America was a conservative talk radio network?
MSM?
Now he knows how we feel trying to talk to a typical liberal.
If this was EIB it would be leading nightly news!!
Bumparoni.
Air America and those who are involved in each of these ways just plain sad.
Don't forget Denial and rationalization.
The "Free-Thinkers" have already worked this out in their heads and declared this a; "non-story".
-Can you imagine the uproar if Rush had done same?
NY Attorney General's Hotline:
1-800-771-7755
Please use this form to submit questions or comments to the Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/online_forms/email_ag.jsp
"If this was EIB" -Beat me to it, but ya. -If this had been Rush it would be WALL to WALL.
bwahahahahahaha...I couldn't type that with a straight face...
One, it was reprehensible to take money from an organization to help poor children, even if they were willing to give it.
Second, it is reprehensible to not pay the money back after promising to do so. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
So much for liberal compassion. They are such flaming hypocrits.
Yeah, but according to Air America, only the government should be helping poor kids, not private organizations, so they probably consider the theft justified.
Operating on someone else's money; Its called the Wellstone Syndrome.
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.
it appears they're "slow walking" this thing so slow they're walking in place!! not a peep from DA Morgenthau's office or Eliot Spitzer , here's hoping Leslie Crocker Snyder at least ways in ,... its August , ScareAmerica and the leftie press[MSM et al] just want this to get NOTHING until they've all got their story straight , September will be so chock full they know they've got a better chance then
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