Political | Process

Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’s only child, raked in $969,459 from the embattled charity through his art firm, Trap Heals, BLM’s Form 990 disclosure shows. An LLC run by Cullors’s brother, Paul Cullors, received $840,993 for “professional security services.”

Shalomyah Bowers, a member of the BLM board of directors and a close associate to Cullors, pulled in $2,167,894 to his company for consulting and management services. New Impact Partners, an LLC run by the sister of BLM operations director Raymond Howard, received $107,000 for “fundraising counsel activities.”

Cullors ultimately had exclusive control over how BLM spent its funds, as she was the only member of the charity’s board of directors from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, the time frame covered by the Form 990 disclosure.

“This 990 shows why Cullors could no longer lead Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation,” Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner.

“I’m sure people who donated, in some cases their rent money, to BLM didn’t expect millions of dollars going to family members and close associates of Patrisse Cullors while thousands of protests were taking place.”

BLM even paid out $139,625 to its former executive director, Kailee Scales, despite the fact that she didn’t work for the charity during the time frame.

“Kailee Scales did not serve during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021,” BLM reported in its Form 990. “However, she did receive a severance payment for calendar year 2020 in the amount of $139,625. The terms and conditions of the arrangement are confidential.”

Cullors herself billed BLM $73,523 for charter flights during the year, which BLM said Cullors repaid to the charity sometime after July 2021.

“Charter travel for the executive director was incurred due to security threats and during the COVID pandemic. This travel was for organizational purposes,” BLM reported.

BLM also reported spending $5,923,811 on its mansion in Los Angeles, which was purchased with donor cash in October 2020.

Cullors repaid BLM $390 for her use of the charity’s mansion for her child’s birthday party in March 2021.

The charity also disclosed spending a significant sum of money outside the United States.

BLM doled out $8,024,626 in grants to organizations based in foreign countries in North America, upward of $6 million of which is presumably related to the group’s grant to BLM Canada to help fund its cash purchase of a mansion in downtown Toronto in mid-July 2021.