On Friday the Black Lives Matter Global Network was sued by Black Lives Matter Grassroots after accusing a foundation executive of stealing $10 million worth of donations from the organization for their own personal use. The lawsuit says “BLM Global Network Foundation board member Shalomyah Bowers siphoned off the money into his own “personal piggy bank.”
Bowers was described as a “rouge administrator, a middleman, turned usurper”. The lawsuit also reads that Shalomyah bower’s actions forced the foundation to undergo “
Multiple investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and various state attorneys general, blazing a path of irreparable harm to BLM in less than eighteen months. ” At a press conference last week, BLM Grassroots co-director Melina Abdullah said Bowers’ actions stripped the Global Network Foundation of its power and defamed its mission.
“Global Network Foundation has been taken away from the people who built it,” she said. “Global Network Foundation is now led by a highly paid consultant who paid himself upwards of $2 million in a single year.”
According to the complaint Bowers “managed to steala control of” the foundation and became its sole board member and officer. Bowers made over 2.1 million dollars in less than eight months, says the lawsuit. Bowers sent Insider a public response from a Global Network Foundation lawyer and the board.
“Either Melina Abdullah and BLM Grassroots blatantly and intentionally lied with this allegation in order to garner salacious news headlines, or they simply failed to do their due diligence before making such a wild and unfounded accusation,” the statement from the foundation lawyer reads. “Either is simply unacceptable.”
Both statements say the claims that Bowers’ siphoned 10 million dollars is false.
