A nonprofit founded with help from two New York legislators — Rep. Gregory Meeks and state Sen. Malcolm Smith — functions more like a slush fund than a charity, according to an ethics watchdog group, which plans to file a state ethics complaint against Smith this week.
As The Post reported yesterday, New Direction Development Corp., which was created in 2001 with help from the two Queens Democrats, appears to have used its funds to pay for meals, entertainment, consulting fees and IRS penalties.
Some $150,000 in donations, including thousands the community raised to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, remains unaccounted for, according to Ken Boehm, head of the National Legal and Policy Center.
POLS PUSH MONEY INTO THEIR DO-NOTHING QUEENS CHARITY
“When you see lots and lots of consulting fees with large amounts flashing around, at some point one wonders if an elected official is trying to sell their office,” said Boehm.
“Sen. Smith, with respect to New Direction, violated several provisions of New York state law,” he said.
Boehm says his group will lodge a complaint with the state’s Public Integrity Commission this week.
When his constituents helped raise close to $15,000 to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Meeks promised “every dime, every dime” would go to a group of 30 families displaced from New Orleans.
But there is no record the charity he and Smith founded along with their wives ever delivered more than $1,392 of aid.
Between 2001 and 2006, Smith helped funnel at least $56,000 to the charity through earmarks.
Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Smith, said, “Neither he nor his wife have had any involvement in the day to day operations or administration of the organization since he helped found it. As for their accounting of charitable donations separate from state funds, that is the sole purview of the organization and does not involve the senator.”
In 2005, after Katrina, the nonprofit created New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families, relief fund. Donations were asked to be sent to the offices of Meeks, Smith or Assemblywoman Barbara Clark.
A community gospel concert raised $11,210 for the charity, and in her 2005 newsletter Clark is pictured with Meeks holding a giant check.
In 2005, Meeks’ campaign donated $10,000 to the Katrina fund, but according to a later filing, was sent back $5,000. Neither Meeks nor the charity offered an explanation.
Two other donors, who according to filings, gave a total of $15,000 to New Direction, told The Post they were under the impression the money had gone to Katrina victims.
From 2002 to 2008, the charity’s headquarters were at the law offices of Joan Flowers, who served as campaign treasurer for both Meeks and Smith, plus Gov. Paterson.
The charity was also founded with the help of Smith’s former business partner, Darryl Greene, whose company is one of those comprising Aqueduct Entertainment Group, which Paterson recently awarded the $300 million racino contract. Additional reporting by Isabel Vincent