VIA: AJC.com
Three officials with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference met in Atlanta with federal and local investigators looking into allegations that the national chairman and former treasurer mishandled hundreds of thousands of the organization’s money.
Agent Michael Brooks with the FBI in Cincinnati confirmed Wednesday “investigation is continuing and that it has included interviews at Atlanta of SCLC representatives.”
The meeting in Atlanta was five days after FBI agents searched the Dayton, Ohio, SCLC office as well as the homes of national chairman the Rev. Raleigh Trammell and his daughter, Angela Goodwine. The agents took boxes of records and computers from all three locations in Dayton.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported last month that Trammell and former national treasurer Spiver Gordon of Eutaw, Ala., may have diverted at least $569,000 of SCLC money to bank accounts they controlled. The newspaper also obtained records indicating checks drawn on SCLC accounts were made out to Trammell, Gordon or their relatives.
Law enforcement agencies in Georgia, where the SCLC is based, Ohio and Alabama have been provided information about the possible mismanagement of funds. But the FBI said search warrants were executed last week only in Dayton.
Board member Art Rocker, also chairman of the Florida state SCLC, national president the Rev. Byron Clay from New Orleans, and Dexter Wimbish, the SCLC’s Atlanta general council who has voluntarily and temporarily stepped down while the legal issues around the organization’s money are resolved.
Rocker said after the meeting Wednesday that the questions from FBI agents and investigators from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office concerned “mismanagement of funds” and if the board approved the expenditures.
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