Adam KlasfeldMay 11th, 2021, 3:54 pm
A federal bankruptcy judge rejected the National Rifle Association’s Chapter 11 petition on Tuesday, finding that the cash-flush gun group brought their case in bad faith to avoid a lawsuit by the New York attorney general which seeks to dissolve the organization.
“There are several aspects of this case that still trouble the Court, including the manner and secrecy in which authority to file the case was obtained in the first place, the related lack of express disclosure of the intended Chapter 11 case to the board of directors and most of the elected officers, the ability of the debtor to pay its debts, and the primary legal problem of the debtor being a state regulatory action,” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge
Adam KlasfeldApr 8th, 2021, 11:42 am
During his first day on the witness stand in a closely watched bankruptcy trial, National Rifle Association chief
Wayne LaPierre conceded Wednesday that he made a “mistake” by not disclosing his excursion on a Hollywood producer’s yacht on conflict-of-interest forms. The gun-group honcho also acknowledged on Thursday that he was disciplined for receiving “excess benefits.”
“Yes, I was disciplined,” LaPierre told the charities bureau chief of the New York State Attorney General’s Office. “I paid it back.”
On the first day of his testimony, LaPierre faced questioning about his excursions on two yachts, the Illusions and the Grand Illusions; all-expense-paid hunting trips in Botswana and other exotic locales for him and his wife; a shopping spree at a Beverly Hills Zegna for Italian suits that ran close to $300,000.
Adam KlasfeldFeb 13th, 2021, 10:52 am
Formally asking a federal bankruptcy judge to reject the National Rifle Association’s “bad faith” petition, New York Attorney General
Letitia James described the gun group’s maneuver as a transparent bid to avoid accountability by an organization that claims to be in excellent financial health.
“This case presents an extraordinary and unique set of facts,” the attorney general’s counsel
James Sheehan wrote in a 41-page legal brief on Friday.
“In the face of the substantial allegations of illegal conduct in the state in which it is chartered, and a pending enforcement action there, the NRA has decided that it can cross state borders with its assets and open up in a different jurisdiction to evade law enforcement action,” it continues. “It has filed for bankruptcy using a newly formed subsidiary, while claiming to be financially solvent, to avoid regulation in the state where is chartered and subject to oversight.”
In a hearing originally slated for Monday, the National Rifle Association planned wants to fend off New York Attorney General
Letitia James’s lawsuit seeking the powerful gun group’s dissolution. The NRA will now wait until Jan. 21 to ask a judge in Manhattan to dismiss, pause, or relocate the lawsuit in an effort to get rid of it, delay it, or find it a friendlier jury.
This past August, James sued the NRA in a lawsuit accusing the leadership of looting the nonprofit that has operated in New York since 1871.
“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” James said in a statement on Aug. 6. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”