The National Rifle Association (NRA), a very powerful US arms lobbying group, is trying to use bankruptcy law to move its headquarters from New York state to Texas and protect itself from a major civil lawsuit that could close it. Recourse to bankruptcy does not depend on insolvency, but on the organization carry To be “economically strong for years”: But it can delay the consideration of the civil case, and above all the transfer of the organization’s work to a state considered friendly like Texas, and excluding it from the jurisdiction of New York State, where there are about 150 years ago.
The civil lawsuit was filed in New York last summer after a lengthy investigation, and contained serious allegations of corruption and misuse of funds against the organization’s leaders. According to experts, the NRA will likely close. It is not yet known whether the attempt to escape the cause will succeed.
La NRA ha Requested To be able to challenge Chapter 11, a bankruptcy law similar to an exceptional Italian administration, which allows a company in serious crisis to remain open while the recovery plan begins. The aim of the application is to reconfigure itself as a nonprofit organization in Texas, in order toSlacker To a corrupt political environment, “the organization said in New York. On the other hand, Texas is a friend of arms owners and the organizations that represent them, and has particularly beneficial bankruptcy laws. Any movement should, however, take place only on paper and not physically.
Last August, New York State Attorney Leticia James He had filed a civil suit Against the National Rifle Association, accusing its leaders of corruption and misuse of funds and calling for its dissolution. James had formulated his allegations after an 18-month investigation, which uncovered an economic management of the organization that caused losses of $ 64 million over three years. The main defendant is Wayne LaPier, president of the organization since 1991, along with three other current and former executives who are responsible for using millions of dollars of NRA money to cover personal expenses, travel and gifts.
New York state nonprofits that are under investigation cannot move their headquarters to another state. For example, the Trump Foundation, the main charitable organization associated with President Donald Trump, which ultimately It was closed By the New York State Attorney’s Office. But with the NRA’s decision to demand extraordinary administration, the NRA found the kind of legal loophole it hoped would allow it to change the situation and thus fall outside the jurisdiction of a New York attorney. There will now be a legal process in Texas to consider the application, likely to delay trial in New York State, and temporarily move the civil case files to Dallas, Texas. Prosecutors will likely appeal in New York to take back the case.
Pierre justified the decision to move the NRA headquarters by saying that “giving up New York will” move the organization “to a country that appreciates the contributions of the NRA and celebrates our members who are in compliance with the law and will stand by us.” In support of constitutional freedom. ”Nevertheless, some experts have spoken of the potential risks: A measure that will evaluate the request of extraordinary management could deepen and delve into the accounts of the organization.
The executives named in the lawsuit are accused of violating several federal laws that formally govern the running of nonprofits, such as the NRA. Within six and a half years, the accusations were reported that LaPier, for example, paid a personal advisor 13 and a half million dollars, transported his family on private jets, and went on a trip to the Bahamas on a yacht over 30 meters in length that gave expensive gifts to his friends and put His niece in a hotel for $ 12,000 a night – all on the NRA account. According to the investigation, it was arranged to liquidate more than $ 17 million without the approval of the Board of Directors, because he was no longer the CEO of the Foundation.
Also read: ‘Well-organized militia’
Lapier isn’t the only culprit: Wilson Phillips, the former chief financial officer of the NRA, has not disclosed his personal relationships with the president of the company that received $ 1.4 million from the lobby, and who has not worked since, plus he was paid $ 30,000 a month at the NRA. To give advice that he did not. On the one hand, the organization’s former chief of staff Joshua Powell was accused, among other things, of raising the annual salary from 250,000 to 800,000 dollars in the two years he was in charge.
The NRA is an organization with a great deal of influence over American politics, and it is traditionally close to the Republican Party, although it has close ties to some Democratic politicians. It aims to defend the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is the right to possess weapons. Over the course of the twentieth century, it became more powerful, as it became supportive or prohibitive of acceptable or unwelcome laws about firearms control. But for some time, he was having a bad time, due to the increasingly unwelcome leadership even among supporters of the lobby, and to various economic problems.
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