Did tsunami victims get soaked, too?
A charity that lists Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Queens) among its board members claimed to have collected more than $200,000 for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but tax records show only $10,000 was donated to, and spent by, the group’s relief effort.
Americans for Global and Domestic Peace, an obscure Long Island-based nonprofit formed in 2002, created New York’s Tsunami Relief Fund in 2005.
One donor, Queens attorney Albert Baldeo, received a thank-you letter for his $1,000 contribution. The letter said, “We raised well over $10,000,” and was signed by then-City Councilman Hiram Monserrate and then-Assemblyman Jimmy Meng, co-chairmen of the fund.
A tsunami fund-raiser held in February 2005 at the World’s Fair Marina Restaurant in Queens brought in $240,000, according to a press report at the time.
But Moustafa Elsheikh, director of the charity, told The Post that the $240,000 was an “exaggeration” and that just $10,000 was raised and donated to an Indonesian mosque in Astoria.
The mosque, the Indonesian Muslim Community, said the donation sounded familiar, but it was unable to check its records last week.
“Someone wrote it up in the Indian newspapers to make it sound better,” Elsheikh said.
Elsheikh, who heads a Democratic organization in Queens, said Meeks attended the organization’s only board meeting. Meeks was listed as a board member on the charity’s tax form and Web site; the site was changed last week to remove all board members’ names.
Meeks’ spokeswoman did not return a call for comment.