Cedric and Ike's greatest hits, Vol. 1

I was wrong.  I admit it.  I had a very important fact dead wrong about Cedric Richmond, Ike Spears, 5437 Crowder Blvd., NOCE and NOCAP......Grateful Realty did not own the property from 2000 to 2004 while the non-profits were housed there.

A company called Crowder Development Corporation, LLC owned the property.  And guess who owns Crowder Development?

Un-fucking-believable.

Spears formed the company in August of 2000.  He then purchased 5437 Crowder from Northstar Properties for 180k in September of 2000.  It would appear he incorporated this company for the sole purpose of housing NOCE, NOCAP and Cedric's office.  After the non-profits imploded and the LSED grant money dried up, he sold the building to Grateful Realty for 220k in February of 2005....the building had served it's purpose and a nearly a million dollars (that I can account for) had been run through it in non-profit funds...including a NOCE line item for 60k in renovations to the property.  I had a friend call the current owner of the building who is selling it and ask them if they had done any renovations on the building....she said no..no renovations have been done in at least over 10 years.

NOCAP did receive grant money from the LSED as well as NOCE.  I could only find one NOCAP grant for 15k:

NOCAP was running at around the same budget as NOCE ....200k.  The grant proposal did not have an audit of the company so I have no way of finding out where they were getting the bulk of their funding.

Get this....as I pointed out before the LSED grants specify that you cannot have a non-profit perform duplicate services in the same area:

Well not only were NOCAP and NOCE the exact same service, they even told the LSED that they were going to use NOCE's "experts":

Now keep in mind that NOCE was only paying one person a little over 4k/year to be the computer expert.  So far I have only accounted for 3 computers between the two non-profits and only one computer teacher.  They are asking for 1000 dollars in this grant to buy computers.  You have a company running at 200k/year to teach computer skills and "bridge the digital divide" and they are buying $1000 in computers.

That's pretty amazing...was anybody even reading these grant requests or were they just stroking the checks?

Notice that for the grant, Spears listed the NOCAP address at 1555 Poydras Street...I think that is his law office.  Also notice that on the bottom of some of these documents you see Spears and Spears upside down....that means the documents were faxed from his law office.  Interesting how he failed to list NOCAP's real address as 5437 Crowder....this was two years after they had already housed the non-profit there and they even put up the damn sign outside:

 
This is a classic Jefferson scam....classic....textbook.  Cedric Richmond is a crook, we already knew Ike Spears was but now we know Richmond's true nature as well.

I have accounted for over 50 LSED grant requests from Richmond totaling in the millions.  I would say a little over half those requests and money went to churches who had similar mission statements...bridging the digital divide, teaching kids to pass the leap, developing "life skills" for kids, etc.  Non-profits with names like A Blessing in a Blessing, inc,  Put God First Community Development Corp., Stars Over the East Television Program, New Life Community Development Corp., Doing Good in the Hood, LLC, Franklin Ave. Baptist Church, Roy Ave. Baptist church ($55,000), On Giant Shoulders, inc......the list goes on.

I'm not suggesting all these organizations were bogus, I'm sure many of them produced great results. I'm just stating that it seems the LSED was stroking checks at Richmond's behest without care nor clue as to what the money was going to or if it could be accounted for.  The NOCAP proposal even stated they were tapping another LSED grantee for services, NOCE, which is a clear violation of the grant requirements.  Was anyone reading this stuff or did they just stroke the checks every time Richmond told them to?

You know, I have to ask....do other cities dole out cash to churches?  Millions of dollars from the Hotel/Motel taxes being stroked  out to any church who can fill out an application and is in the favor of Cedric Richmond or another state legislator?

Here was one of my favorite question responses:

Nice....repeat the answer back in the form of the question and get 30k. 

Bottom line...Richmond and Spears were running a Jefferson non-profit scam out of 5437 Crowder.  There is money missing from the entities which can't be accounted for, including 60k via NOCE to renovate Ike Spears property.  I believe Richmond was fleecing that non-profit through a credit card and by proxy through the Executive Director he was romantically involved with.  I believe when the non-profit auditor/accountant found the irregularities, Richmond had the woman take the fall and possibly paid her to keep the matter quiet.

This guy is bad news....bad fucking news.

Speaking of "bad news"... I still can't believe no one in the MSM has had the balls to call him out on this stuff.

Add another one

I just saw this email from Krewe of Truth today:

AMERICAN ZOMBIE exposes more inappropriate behavior in Cedric's management of
your tax dollars that went to non-profits supposedly set up to serve low-income residents. In fact,
of money received, only 2 percent actually went to help children. Sad. I will add this to what ZOMBIE exposes: the building that housed the non-profits in question is the same location where several candidates I worked with pre-Katrina would meet Ike Spears and Blair Boutte, who are running Cedric's campaign, to pay campaign workers, get t-shirts and campaign material, etc. Not good for a "non-profit" office.

That is also in direct violation of the LSED grant agreement:

 I think an audit needs to be conducted on every 501c3 Richmond is associated with or has recommended for grants.  Is his current campaign office associated with a 501c3?  I would bet my bottom dollar there are more non-profits out there he is abusing in one way or another, I just haven't found them yet......yet.

Let's take it from the top...

In the past couple of days I've received more documents about grants distributed to non-profits from the Louisiana Stadium Exposition District.  Suffice to say I would love to go back and research many of these non-profits, yet I want to stay focused on NOCE - New Orleans Community Enhancement.

One of the documents I obtained was the original grant application to LSED from NOCE....it was for $150,000:

What's interesting is that NOCE's original Executive Director was not the ED who stole the money later on.  And note that the original address listed for the organization was not 5437 Crowder Blvd.

 That address is actually a private residence which I am assuming belonged to the original Executive Director, Patricia S. Moore:

This is an important factor, here I show you the original budget for the non-profit.

Interesting that the ONLY person they have actually tutoring kids is budgeted at $4,680 for the entire year...that consitutes what I believe would be about 2% or less of the entire non-profit budget.  But the turd in the punchbowl is that they have a line item for $60,000 for office renovations.  Here's a more detailed explanation:

NOTE: This was two pages and I cut and pasted the bottom part of this image, but did not altar the budget in any way.

If the property in question is on several acres of land, we know it's not the residential address listed above, so I can only assume that 60k was used to renovate 5437 Crowder.  Is that even legal?  Can you use this LSED grant money and non-profit funds to renovate a privately owned residence?  No...you can't and it's even listed in the grant requirements:

The clear benefactor in this was Grateful Realty, the private company who owned 5437 Crowder Blvd at the time.  The way I see it, they owe the LSED $60,000.  I don't understand how the line item was even allowed to cut the muster (it's not mustard so don't correct me).  What's also interesting is that when Rep. Cedric Richmond signed this request for the grant his address was listed as 7240 Crowder:

One year later his address was 5437 Crowder, the same as NOCE.  Did any of that 60k go to renovate Rep. Richmond's office?  Or better yet did the building even undergo renovations?

Another concern I have is the fact that NOCAP (New Orleans Computer Access Project) was housed in the building at the exact same time and seems to have the exact same mission statement.  In the LSED Grant requirement list there is clearly a clause which states that the grant cannot be distributed to a duplicate service in the community:

They were in the same fluckin' building so I'm assuming that constitutes the same "area to be served" unless we're taking measurements by the foot.  While I don't have NOCAP's information or where they received grant money from, I have already shown that the organization's President Director was Ike Spears.  Well guess who was an original board member of NOCE:

Is it remotely possible that Cedric and Ike didn't have any idea that they had housed clone 501c3's in the same building?  I'm also wondering if NOCAP paid for any renovations to 5437 Crowder.

Both NOCAP and NOCE were terminated around 2004.  I have no idea how much money was channeled through NOCAP but I have been able to account for around 600k which was pumped through NOCE.

So this got me wondering if this whole mission statement had been reinvented in the present era.  Sho' nuff I found this:

Notice it was incorporated in 2004, immediately after NOCE's demise.  I'm not saying this non-profit is in violation of any laws are is not legitimate, I don't know.  But it just seems like this mission statement and the moniker "community enhancment" is the idea of the decade.  In light of it's predecessor, I would like to know how 2nd District Community Enhancement Corp. is being funded and which politicians are supporting it.

Also, I found this item in the LSED grant requirement list:

So I'm thinking not only does Grateful Realty need to either pony up 60k to the LSED or turn their property over to them, I think Cedric needs to turn in his Rolex or at least the diamond bevel.

More to come....

Children don't mean a thing, if you aint' got that bling

For the past four months, I've been researching a tip I received on current 2nd District Congressional candidate, State Rep. Cedric Richmond.  I was told that Rep. Richmond took a chapter out of the Mose/Bill Jefferson playbook and set up at least one 501c3 (non-profit), then bilked the organization's cash flow for personal use.  That's not a flippant allegation, and I was admittedly reticent to even look into the matter for fear of how much time I would have to put into finding the truth.  I, of course, proceeded against my better judgment.

Four months later, I think what I've found is significant and worthy of being aired out...particularly because the last thing I want to see happen is Jefferson v 2.0 march off to Washington, D.C. and pick up where bilk-master Bill left off.

After researching the allegations, I am convinced Cedric Richmond is bad news.  Here's my case.

The non-profit in question, New Orleans Community Enhancement, Inc. (NOCE), hit the stage in March of 2000.  While its mission statement varied from year to year, from what I can tell the entity was created to provide computer access and tutorials to under-privileged children in New Orleans neighborhoods.  Here is the most detailed mission statement I could find, which came from a grant application (click to expand):

Ok, I guess that's a noble effort.

The organization had very few employees, in fact only one full time employee who served as the Executive Director.  I have read 3 audits of the organization, by CPA, Desiree' W. Honore, and I can't understand how they were accomplishing their mission statement.  NOCE went defunct in 2004, for reasons which I will spell out shortly, but of all the expense reports I've read I could only find one where any computers were actually purchased, and that report only showed that three computers were obtained.

The physical address which housed NOCE was 5437 Crowder Blvd. in N.O. East.  Here is the building:

NOCE got off to what seemed to be a good start in terms of financial support.  Their funding sources seemed to be running at around 200k a year in their short 4 year tenure.  The sources of that funding were a handful of entities:  The Governor's Office of Urban Affairs and Development, the Department of Education, the City of New Orleans, Jazz Enterprises, Entergy, and the most interesting source came from Louisiana Stadium Exposition District (the Superdome) who funded NOCE through money they received from the New Orleans Area Tourism and Economic Development Fund.  Here is a revenue statement which shows the funders and the amount they provided in 2002:

So here's where it gets interesting.  At some point, in what I believe was 2002/2003, the director of NOCE obtained a credit card for the organization.  She then proceeded to use that credit card for personal use.  She also wrote payroll checks to herself which exceeded her allotted salary....and forgot to pay payroll taxes.  Plus there were never any minutes taken during the board meetings nor were there any real measures of the entity's success.  In fact it seems the board rarely even met.

It seems the CPA began to discover something was up in the 2003 audit.

And then by 2004, they had confirmed that there was obviously theft which took place on the part of the NOCE director:

2004NOCE


Notice they turned the findings over to the district attorney, subsequently the NOCE director was arrested and charged with theft.  I am withholding the name of the director because she is not a public figure, as opposed to Rep. Richmond, and I have no desire to make her life more difficult.

But the result of her legal woes, were quite fascinating:

Docket Full

The audit found at least 30k which had been embezzled from NOCE, yet somehow the NOCE Director plea bargained her way into a misdemeanor charge of theft for less than $100 and was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $15,000.  I don't know if this is common practice, but that seems like the sweetheart deal of the century to me.  Also, her record was eventually expunged in March of this year...I'm not sure that's even legal, but I'll refrain from expounding on that until I get more information.

Ok, so I assume you're asking yourself what does this have to do with Cedric Richmond.  Well, it just so happens that Mr. Richmond was the man behind the money which funded the non-profit.  In fact he is the Louisiana legislator who applied and recommended multiple grants for NOCE from the Louisiana Stadium Exposition District:

Notice the address Richmond uses in this official legislative letter....look familiar?  Yeah it should, 5437 Crowder Blvd....the same address which houses NOCE.  In fact, the grant requests that were submitted by NOCE required a legislator from the NOCE area to provide a letter of support:

That's a pretty sweet deal..."I approve this grant and by the way, send the check to my address".

Richmond even had a phone attached to that address:

It seems the Louisiana Stadium Exposition District has been very accommodating to Rep. Richmond's grant requests....in fact I've heard he's made over 40 of them.  I wonder if they are aware of the track record of his chosen grant recipients...I wonder if they care.

Now the story gets juicier and I want to be very careful about how I word this.  The first question is what the nature of Richmond's relationship was with the NOCE director.  I have been told it was more than casual, and I'm confident that was the case.  This, of course, leads one to question whether or not Richmond was a beneficiary of the NOCE credit card expenditures, or bank account.

Well, interestingly enough, I have been told by two separate sources that Cedric Richmond used non-profit funds to purchase a diamond bezel from a prestigious downtown jeweler for his blingiddy-bling, white gold, Rolex watch ....here he is sporting that bad boy:

How certain of this am I?  I'm certain enough to print the allegation and await his response.  I have contacted his campaign for an interview but I have not yet received a response. 

You know, if this is true, this is a new low.  When Ellenese Brooks-Simms got busted for the software package she pushed into the NOPS for Mose Jefferson, she claimed she needed the money because her husband was sick.  I have some sympathy for that.  Yes she was exploiting children for her own gain, but she was also doing her best to help an ill family member.

Using children as a means to acquire cash from public entities so you can get your bling on....that's beyond shitty....that's McShitty shitty...that's Filet o' Fish McShitty.  That's fake theater popcorn butter shitty.  That's Airline Highway motel shitty.  You get my point?  Not only is it abhorrent, it's in extremely poor taste.

I went out to take pictures of the 5437 Crowder address today.  The property houses a real estate company which is listed as the owner of the property, Grateful Realty:

I am not sure if Richmond has any financial interests in Grateful Realty.  However, there was a sign in the front yard for another entity housed there, New Orleans Computer Access Project.

My spidey sense started tingling because that sounds eerily familiar to the mission statement of New Orleans Community Enhancement, Inc.  So I did an SOS search on it and lo and behold, whose name should come up:

Hey whadda you know...it's Ike Spears...with the exact same idea Cedric had for NOCE.  It looks to be defunct as well, but I'm wondering if NOCAP was a "grateful" recipient of some of those Louisiana Stadium Exposition District dollars back in the day.  What's really interesting is that both NOCE and NOCAP had nearly identical mission statements under the same roof....that must have been convenient in terms of sharing those three computers.  If NOCAP bought three more computers we'd be up to six.  I wonder where NOCAP was getting their grant money from and if the donors realized there was another non-profit soliciting grant funds for the exact same thing.  Jeez, with all these charitable entities working towards "bridging the digital divide" in the first half of the decade, I'm betting the city must have some pretty savvy computer wiz-kids running around by now.

I wonder how many 501c3's were housed in this property on Crowder.  I wonder how many of them were paying rent to the landlord and at what amount.  I wonder if the landlord makes campaign contributions.  We know they're "grateful", I wonder if they're generous as well. 
 
Folks, bottom line is that this is just one 501c3 Richmond has been involved with and I uncovered some nasty dealings right out of the gate.  If you want to send this guy to Washington and let him run amok, that's your decision, but at least now you know what you're getting.  I'm not advocating Cao or Lafonta, I'm just letting you know what Richmond is all about.

I was also told that immediately after the director's sentence was reduced to petty theft, she celebrated by buying a 70k Lexus SUV.  That's a curious thing to do for someone who just lost their 47k a year job and was nearly charged with a felony + jail time.  After having to pay out 15k in restitution, you have to wonder where you get that kind of cash to purchase such a sweet ride.

Things that make you go hmmmm......