What of the Jena 6 funds? Questions grow over use of donations

[Psephos]

Source: Chicago Tribune

HOUSTON - Just weeks after some 20,000 demonstrators protested what they decried as unequal justice aimed at six black teenagers in the Louisiana town of Jena, controversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers' legal defense.

Parents of the "Jena 6" teens have refused to publicly account for how they are spending a large portion of the cash, estimated at up to $250,000, that resides in a bank account they control.

Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated black radio host who is leading a major fundraising drive on behalf of the Jena 6, has declined to reveal how much he has collected. Attorneys for the first defendant to go to trial, Mychal Bell, say they have yet to receive any money from him.

Meanwhile, photos and videos are circulating across the Internet that raise questions about how the donated money is being spent. One photo shows Robert Bailey, one of the Jena 6 defendants, smiling and posing with $100 bills stuffed in his mouth. Another shows defendants Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis modeling like rap stars at the Black Entertainment Television Hip-Hop music awards last month in Atlanta.

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Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/chi-jena_bdnov11,0,6545985.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout

[Old and In the Way]

1. Kos had a good post on this today.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/12/155812/32

I can't believe that this money isn't being controlled by court appointed guardians to use it for their legal defense.

[emilyg]

2. Thanks.

[stimbox]

3. Sounds like a racist smear campaign to me.

Color of change has the real story and cancelled checks from the lawyers.

http://colorofchange.org/jena/baisden/

[Judi Lynn]

5. You betcha. Absolute first impression here, as well. Typically hideous. n/t

[ohio2007]

10. the color of money is the issue. Lawyers control the money

From your link ; images of the deposited checks

http://colorofchange.org/jena/baisden/documentation/checks.html

so long defense fund.

[jaysunb]

4. Please don't start this shit here !

See the Kos post and let it go....PLEASE

[SoCalDem]

6. Money changes people.. I was wishing they had set up a scholarship

to college for these boys :(

[Exultant Democracy]

7. Did you see the Kos link? This story is BS the money is going to pay the legal team.

[BronxBoy]

8. The larger issue

here is not these allegations of misappropriated money. I agree that this story sounds like a smear piece. But if you listen to Black media with any regularity, especially the shows of a lot of the personalities that have stepped in to support these young men, you would know for a fact that there has been some acrimonious sniping between certain parties. For example, Warren Ballantine, a stablemate of Michael Baisden was very upset with the event that Baisden put on after the March in Jena. It actually got a little nasty at one point in time with listeners calling in and chastising either talk host based upon whose view they supported.


Quite frankly after watching everyone pull together to address this judicial inequity, it's rather disappointing to see this type of stuff bubble up to the surface.

[hadrons]

9. There were similair questions during the Tawana Brawley hoax

Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox, and C. Vernon Mason would collect thousands (often in cash) in donatations from African-Americans to fund her legal team (the legal team was Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason) and nobody knew where the money exactly went (although Brawley's familiy was able to purchase a home afterall was said it don't.)