Bank documents show hundreds of thousands in re-routed NAACP checks

Copies of what appear to be more than a hundred checks, totaling over $300,000, written out to the Philadelphia Chapter of the NAACP, but deposited in the bank account of Next Generation CDC, a nonprofit corporation founded and apparently still-controlled by longtime NAACP president Jerome Whyatt Mondesire.

City Paper has obtained copies of what appear to be more than a hundred checks, totaling over $300,000, written out to the Philadelphia Chapter of the NAACP, but deposited in the bank account of Next Generation CDC, a nonprofit corporation founded and apparently still-controlled by longtime NAACP president Jerome Whyatt Mondesire.

Despite apparently receiving income, Next Generation CDC lost its tax-exempt status years ago and has been officially defunct, as far as federal charity designations are concerned.

The same documents show dozens of checks drawn from Next Generation CDC's bank account and written out to "cash" or to Mondesire himself. Several of these checks, including one for $10,000, bear Mondesire's own authorizing signature.

The documents are just some of the bank records obtained by a group of longtime local NAACP members who are suing for access to records they believe will show that Mondesire misused funds intended for the civil rights organization. In June, a judge ruled that bank records for the Next Generation CDC be turned over to the plaintiffs.

Central to the unfolding claims is the question: What exactly is or was the Next Generation CDC?

The non-profit was the subject of a multi-part investigation by the news organization AxisPhilly, which ceased operations in June.

(You can find the entire series here)

CIty Paper could not independently authenticate the documents, which comprise hundreds of pages turned over to the plaintiffs by PNC bank, but bank routing numbers on the copies match copies of checks previously obtained by this reporter, which Mondesire has himself acknowledged as authentic. Gerard Egan, an attorney for the former NAACP members suing Mondesire, says they represent everything PNC bank turned over to him.

Assuming they are authentic, the documents directly contradict claims by Mondesire to AxisPhilly involving two checks made out to the Philadelphia NAACP and deposited instead in the Next Generation CDC bank account. Asked about the checks, Mondesire said that "a few" individuals had given checks to the Next Generation CDC in order to claim a tax write-off, "But no large sums of money. No."

Mondesire did not respond to a call requesting comment for this story.

The latest documents show not only that at least 100 donations meant for the NAACP were deposited in the Next Generation CDC account — but also that much less money appears to have gone back to the NAACP, thus challenging Mondesire's claims that the Next Generation CDC was merely a pass-through for NAACP funds.

Checks made out to the NAACP and deposited in the Next Generation CDC account totaled just over $309,000 between 2007 and 2013. During the same period, checks were regularly written out to the NAACP from the Next Generation CDC account, but those checks total only just over $40,000 — a difference of more than a quarter million dollars.

They include donations both large and small from, from thousands of dollars to a few hundred — some from major corporate donors, others from political campaign committees, others from individuals.

All of these donations were made after 2006, the last year for which the Next Generation CDC reported any income to federal authorities. Roughly $190,000 in donations were deposited in 2010, the year the organization's tax-exempt status was officially revoked, or later. 

Among donations made out to the NAACP but deposited instead in the Next Generation CDC bank acount:

— $40,000 from Brown Superstores in 2008.

— At least $33,000 in five donations between 2007-2010 from the Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition

— $20,000 in two donations, in 2011 and 2012, from Walmart

— $14,500 in seven donations between 2008-2012 from the Philadelphia Activities Fund, a discretionary pot of money controlled by City Council.

— $12,000 in two donations, in 2009 and 2012, from Comcast.

— $5,500 in three donations in 2008, 2012, and 2013 from U.S. Congressman and Democratic City Committee chairman Bob Brady

— $4,100 in three donations in 2007, 2012 and 2013 from the IBEW Local 98, the politically powerful electricians union.

And while the Next Generation CDC collected at least $37,000 in donations as late as 2013, none of this money appears to have been reported in federal tax forms required of all nonprofits. As reported by AxisPhilly last fall, the last tax forms it filed were for 2006. Three years later, the Next Generation CDC's nonprofit status was automatically revoked for failure to file those forms.

These documents represent examples of checks made out to the Philadelphia NAACP but deposited in a bank account belonging to the Next Generation CDC.

These documents represent examples of checks made out to Mondesire himself or to "Cash" by the Next Generation CDC. Some were signed by Mondesire himself, others by Felicia McGaffie, who apparently served as treasurer in years after the nonprofit went defunct. CP was not able to reach McGaffie for comment.

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Questions Unanswered

Attorney Thomas Kenney, who represents Mondesire in the civil lawsuit filed against him by the former NAACP members, declined to comment on the specifics of the latest revelations.

"This is obviously not the end of the story," said Kenney. "We're going to take this fight to [the plaintiffs] and find out what's going on here. We want answers as well."

Gerard Egan, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, called the latest documents "deeply troubling."

Mondesire, Egan says, "Is going to have to explain why all this money, all these donations to the NAACP, were going through the Next Generation CDC. My clients are very interested to see how he's going to explain this."

Egan also has harsh words for the national office of the NAACP, which suspended not only Mondesire, but also Egan's clients, and has since declined to comment to reporters on the matter or agree to audit the group's finances, as requested by more than 20 local NAACP members, including those now suing to obtain financial records for the Next Generation CDC. Plaintiffs Sidney Booker, a Philadelphia entrepreneur, and the Rev. Elisha Morris were listed in Next Generation CDC tax documents as members of the organization's board of directors; but while they acknowledge having been asked by Mondesire to appear in these roles on paper, both say they knew nothing about the organization or its activities.

The plaintiffs have also asked repeatedly the national office of the NAACP to investigate what they believe to have been the mishandling of money meant for the organization. The national office appears to have undertaken no such investigation, and instead suspended the plaintiffs, along with Mondesire, as officers of the Philadelphia NAACP.

In a letter mailed this week to the Rev. Gill Ford, the national office's "branch compliance" director, attorney Egan called the NAACP's apparent unwillingness to investigate the matter "absurd."

"Perhaps you can explain to your membership why it is okay that over $300,000 of funds donated to the NAACP ended up in Mondesire's Next Generation CDC accounts?" Egan wrote.

The national office of the NAACP declined a request by this reporter to speak to leaders, referring the matter again to Ford, who did not return a call for comment.

Myserious Nonprofit 

It has been more than half a year since AxisPhilly first reported that members of the Philadelphia NAACP were questioning Mondesire's handling of the group's finances and the relationship between the group's finances and the Next Generation CDC.

In the following months, an AxisPhilly series about Next Generation CDC and its enigmatic ties to the Philadelphia NAACP revealed:

— Over $600,000 in taxpayer-funded grants awarded to the Next Generation CDC  for projects that were never completed or even undertaken — including over half a million dollars for "renovations" to three properties still vacant and another in which Mondesire claims to reside.

—  A $100,000 grant Mondesire applied for and received by promising to rebuild a youth football field that was in fact never built.

— Hundreds of thousands of dollars in delinquent mortgages taken out by the nonprofit on various properties it still owns, including the building which houses Mondesire's private business.

— Two checks, including one for $10,000 from a casino interest, which Mondesire would later endorse, made out to the Philadelphia NAACP but deposited instead by Mondesire in the bank account of the Next Generation CDC.