CNN news 2012-09-29 加文本

cnn news 2012-09-29

Hi, I'm Anderson Cooper, welcome to podcast. Charities that have promised to be helping veterans accused of lining their pockets instead, new developments, keep them honest. Also the ridiculous. Let's get started.

Another "Keep Them Honest" report from months now, we've been telling about the Disabled National Veterans Foundation, how it's been under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee as a result by reporting showing, little if any of the millions, tens of millions that received the donations over the years actually went to help disabled veterans. Well, tonight we now know that the DBNF is part of even larger investigations involving its chief fundraising company. Quadriga Art, that's a company based right here in the New York and it says it's one of the world leaders in servicing charities. But so far no one from Quadriga Art will to appear on camera and answer our question. Stew Griffin has aksed repeatedly, take a look.

"I am standing out, but what I want to know is, am I going to get a 9 p.m interview, all right, ok, so the bottom line is that you are not going to get an interview. It's Stew Griffin, G-R-I-F-F-I-N."

"Sorry he is not here, there is nobody."

"Oh, I'm trying to reach Mr.Shewlott."

"Sorry, he is not here."

"Oh, he is not here."

Now Quadriga Art has called our reporting bias, they say we ignored the good they are doing for their clients, but they will not going  camera. Tonight, they may have a lot more than cnn to worry about. Stew has been investigating the trial of donated money and as of reporting, the stakes have just gotten a lot higher. Stew, what do you do?

Anderson we have learned that the charity's bureau of New York State, attorney general's office has begun its own investigation of Quadriga Art. So too has California's attorney general. Now we've learned the state of Florida also looking into all of this. The investigation is begining after cnn exposed the Disabled Veterans National Foundation, this charity has raised 70 million dollars since 2007 in the name of disabled veterans. And as far as we can tell Anderson, has given very little, if any money to the actual disabled vets, it has gone mostly to Quadriga Art, this fundraising company.

And that...I mean, almost from the very begining, this whole charity was in some sort of trouble, I mean, you know that. This is a very complex story that my producer David Fits Patric and I have digging into, but what had really happened is that they are accused of trying to jump-start itself by making them look like another charity. You might consider it identity theft of a charity. Back in 2005, before there was a Disabled Veterans National Foundation, DVNF, there was another charity, with a very similar name, the Disabled Living Memorial Fund, DVLMF, its sole purpose was to raise enough money for a memorial on this site near Capitol Hill in Washington. The executive director of that group was this guy, his name is Larry Rivers, he is a retired marine officer. The memorial foundation, Anderson, raised enough money to build the memorial and essentially stop raising money. But here is what happened next, the president of the newly formed DVNF in 2007, went to that marine officer for advice, Larry Rivers was being paid by Quadriga Art as a consultant. He referred DVNF to his private company who is being paid by Quadriga Art. Soon thereafter, according to documents obtained of by cnn, the newly formed charity DVNF and Quadriga were accused of, in effect, stealing the identity of that charity that wanted to build a memorial by using the mailing list of its donors and the logo of the DVLMF. But DVNF, it seems like this is all about increasing the mailing list to get more donors, they can raise more money, and so forth, because this contract and a lot of money seems to be going to Quadriga Art, the senate's investigating is, I mean, if there are still money out there, what do we know?

The root problem here, Anderson, is the money that Americans are given, to many many charities are not going to the people that they believe going to. So in other words, if I give money for Disabled Vets, it's going to Quadriga Art, I don't give that money because it's going to be used to build a mailing list. If you said to me, give us ten dollars, so our charity can eventually build a mailing list that in ten years from now, we might give money to disabled vets. that's, that's , that's the problem. We went to Rodger Crafer who is a non-profit, fundraising expert in this building, we asked him what he thought about this. Here is what he had said.