Tag Archives: hypocrisy

Smear Campaign Tools Exposed: Legal Intimidation

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We always have a knife in our teeth.
–Richard Berman

Online promotion for Center for Consumer Freedom’s failed anti-lawyer campaign, LawsuitAddiction.com.

Richard Berman despises trial lawyers, and his front groups frequently rage against “frivolous lawsuits,” “fat-cat lawyers,” and a “cabal” of attorneys.

But apparently, that loathing only applies to lawyers working for the public good.

When news came out that Berman was attempting to smear animal welfare groups through a phony “shelter advocacy” group, shelters were outraged by the deception. Berman then attempted to silence them through a campaign of legal intimidation, sending cease and desist letters to a number of shelters and animal welfare bloggers, including Washington Animal Rescue League, Humane Society of Berks County, Richmond SPCA, San Francisco SPCA, Ecorazzi, and Ohmidog.

Many of these shelters took down their comments rather than be faced with defending a meritless, but costly lawsuit.

In order to cast doubt on the victim’s words, Berman and his front groups focus on trivial errors, or even create bold misstatements of fact. In response to Time Magazine’s coverage of Berman’s underhanded tactics in which they stated that HumaneWatch.org paid for advertisements attacking the Humane Society of the United States, Berman’s attorneys objected, claiming that it was the Center for Consumer Freedom that paid for them.

HumaneWatch is an alias of the Center for Consumer Freedom. (Source: 2011 Form 990 tax return)

In reality, HumaneWatch.org is the Center for Consumer Freedom, and is actively doing business as HumaneWatch. Berman’s attorneys protested that Berman is not a lobbyist: he’s a former lobbyist (at least, on paper). They protested the claim that CCF represented the tanning bed industry: it was another of Berman’s deceptive campaigns that failed to downplay the dangers of tanning beds.

Despite nitpicking from Berman’s attorneys, the essence of the article is correct, just as animal shelters’ outrage over Berman’s phony shelter group was correct. Although Berman protested that “HSSP isn’t my group,” HSSP is operated by Berman and Company staff, out of Berman and Company’s offices. As with Berman’s other front groups, a significant portion of its “nonprofit” donations were funneled into Berman’s PR firm and into Berman’s pockets.

The purpose of this legal intimidation is clearly not to set the record straight, but to use Berman’s ill-gotten wealth to bully whistleblowers into silence.

In the case of Richard Berman — an attorney himself — crying crocodile tears about legal intimidation while simultaneously using it to harass animal welfare advocates is doubly offensive.

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http://www.stophumanewatch.org/blog/intimidation

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Rick Berman profits from nonprofits

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Nonprofit regulations are intended to ensure that nonprofit organizations exist for the public benefit, and not for the enrichment of its creators.

But when Richard Berman creates nonprofit organizations with a dubious purpose, and diverts tax exempt donations into his own coffers, he circumvents the accountability that’s meant to protect the public from fraud and abuse.

That’s why Marcus Owens, former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, says that Berman’s evasive scheme “clearly, in my view, is operating for his private benefit and for the private benefit of his clients… [That’s] a clear violation of the requirements for tax-exempt status.”

We tallied the payments to Berman and his for-profit PR firm from six of the nonprofit front groups he has created: the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), Center for Union Facts (CUF), Employment Policies Institute Foundation (EPI), American Beverage Institute (ABI), Employee Freedom Action Committee (EFAC), and the Humane Society for Shelter Pets (HSSP).

The results are shocking.

Payments to Richard Berman or Berman and Company, Inc.

Year CCF CUF EPI ABI EFAC HSSP Total
2011$1,307,534.00$886,769.00$1,178,459.00$1,353,364.00$74.00$765,483.00$5,491,683.00
2010$1,707,511.00$587,334.00$1,658,383.00$1,395,519.00$268,873.00$0.00$5,617,620.00
2009$1,479,597.00$596,351.00$1,843,254.00$1,296,185.00$440,765.00—$5,656,152.00
2008$1,061,604.00$784,602.00$523,910.00$1,292,850.00$897,496.00—$4,560,462.00
2007$1,580,280.00$844,535.00$912,437.00$1,304,960.00——$4,642,212.00
2006$1,208,512.00$283,016.00$1,020,547.00$1,220,079.00——$3,732,154.00
2005$1,641,186.00—————$1,641,186.00
2004$1,453,056.00—————$1,453,056.00
2003$1,261,344.00—————$1,261,344.00
2002$1,044,553.00—————$1,044,553.00
TOTAL$13,745,177.00$3,982,607.00$7,136,990.00$7,862,957.00$1,607,208.00$765,483.00$35,100,422.00

Since 2002, Rick Berman has diverted over $35 million in supposedly nonprofit donations into his personal and corporate bank accounts. In some years, as much as 93% of an organization’s revenue has been funneled into personal gain.

Berman has not yet been held accountable for his abuse of nonprofit tax code. It’s a sad indictment of the Internal Revenue Service, its inability enforce its own regulations fairly and consistently, and its unwillingness to protect consumers.

To the see the raw numbers we used, consult the Form 990 tax returns for Berman’s organizations. These forms are gathered for your convenience in our Document Library, or you may obtain them from independent charity evaluators like Guidestar.org.

The relevant figures used in this table are:

  • Gross Receipts: Line G
  • Berman’s token salary: Part VII, Section A
  • Funds diverted to Berman and Company, Inc.: Part VII, Section B (Independent Contractors)
  • Grants to Berman-run organizations: Schedule I

Further reading

Breaking News: HSSP Leadership Vanishes

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Have you ever been struck by the sense that you’ve seen this all before?

In May of 2011, we reported on the frantic purge of David Martosko’s name from Berman and Company websites, followed by his abrupt and unceremonious departure.

So when two-thirds of the Humane Society for Shelter Pets’ leadership suddenly vanished from its website, the feeling of déjà vu was inescapable.

All traces of Jeff Douglas and Deborah Price have been purged from the HSSP website. As in Martosko’s departure, no announcement was made, no farewell message was given; just a wave of revisionist editing that wiped away all traces of their participation in the failing project.

If Price and Douglas have indeed fled HSSP, the group is left with Didi Culp as their sole leadership. Culp’s history of animal advocacy is less than sterling:

  • Culp is currently the subject of an ethics investigation for her misuse of the Frederick County Animal Control facilities, where she is — for the moment — employed.
  • She has publicly opposed vital puppy mill legislation like the PUPS act.
  • She has published a nearly incoherent rant dismissing concerns about animal cruelty.
  • On her pethelp.net website, Culp explains how “comforted” she was by the handling of an animal’s gruesome, fatal injury at a rodeo, concluding that “there was no sign of disrespect for their lives or actions that could in any way be considered cruel or even insensitive.”
  • According to a source at Frederick County Animal Control, restrictions on the inhumane declawing of cats were explicitly removed from adoption contracts under Didi Culp’s supervision.
  • On the HumaneWatch Facebook page, Didi declared that it’s taking away an animal’s rights if you support spay/neuter, a perspective diametrically opposed to the beliefs of most shelter and rescue managers, but squarely in line with that of many commercial breeders and puppy mills.

If two-thirds of HSSP’s leadership are gone and Culp is the last to flee this sinking ship, HSSP is an organization in profound trouble.

And that’s good news for animals.

We’ll bring you more information as it becomes available. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with this quote from Richard Berman:

So no matter how nasty Wayne and HSUS get, they won’t stop me from being proud of my contribution to this excellent new organization and he won’t be able to stop its leadership from excelling.

Berman’s contribution to this fiasco is clear… but HSSP’s leadership? They appear to be escaping, not excelling.

When disaster strikes, the last thing you need is a HumaneWatcher

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It is often said that one’s character comes out during a crisis.  If that is so, then several prominent HumaneWatchers have shown their true colors in the wake of the Joplin tornado.

Last Sunday’s tornado was among the deadliest in U.S. history, with a human death toll of at least 142.  And where human lives are destroyed, surviving animals are displaced.

One agency — the Joplin Humane Society Animal Adoption & Resource Center — has been working nonstop to care for animals displaced by the storms and reunite them with their families.  As of Saturday, they had received 573 animals and reunited 147 with their families.  Besides dogs and cats, some of the animals handled by the shelter include a quaker bird, several chickens, goldfish, and a boa constrictor.

Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished, and HumaneWatchers are always there to dole out punishment to anyone who actually cares about animals.

As is common in any large-scale rescue or natural disaster, the local animal shelter was unable to handle the huge influx of animals on its own.  So Karen Aquino, director of the Joplin Humane Society, asked the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to help.  The ASPCA set up an emergency shelter, brought in all the necessary supplies, and is running the emergency operation.

The Humane Society of the United States, already stretched thin by its operations in the disaster zones of Mississippi and Alabama, sent personnel to care for the animals at the emergency shelter in Joplin.  The Humane Society of Missouri sent in teams to perform search and rescue operations.  And American Humane Association sent in people to provide relief in the shelter itself so staff could time off to care for their own families hit by the disaster.

You would think that all this would show how local and national animal welfare groups can pull together during a time of disaster to provide much needed care for displaced animals.

But then, you would not be a HumaneWatcher.  In their paranoid, delusional fantasy world, the national organizations are not in Missouri to help the local shelter.  They are there to loot, steal, whisk people’s pets off to far-away places, sell them for a profit for themselves, or give them to out-of-state shelter and rescue groups trying to make a buck off tornado victims.

Who, you ask, could possibly believe such a thing?  Let’s start with the VoteNoOnPropB page, which has become a haven for paranoid puppy milling HumaneWatchers and their sympathizers.

Here, Sabra Steele recounts how rescue groups “looted” dogs in Alabama.  She thinks the National Guard should close state borders to any out-of-state rescue groups, and says next time she will chain her dog crate to one hand and her gun to the other.

HumaneWatchers Larkin Vonalt and Cheri Medlin Cason tell VoteNoOnPropB that the HSUS is only in Missouri to take dogs for shelters in the Northeast to sell for a profit:

HumaneWatcher Angie Jensen Noland says she won’t give a dime to Joplin Humane Society.

And HumaneWatcher Bonnie Thompson Jensen sided with VoteNoOnPropB admin Jessica White Bryand on charges that the HSUS had looted dogs from Mississippi.

In fact, the HSUS was transporting animals that families had surrendered because they had lost everything in the storms and could no longer care for their pets.  Rather than trying to rehome pets in a disaster area, HSUS was moving them to new areas where families looking to adopt animals could be found.  This also freed up space in the disaster area for displaced pets.

But that didn’t stop Bonnie from going on to accuse the Joplin Humane Society — on its own Facebook page — of releasing pets to be taken out of state by rescue groups before people had the chance to claim them.

The Joplin Humane Society’s Facebook page is supposed to be a place for the shelter to post items it needs to have donated, information to volunteers, and photos of lost, found, and reunited pets.  It is not supposed to be a place for people to harass those working so hard to help.

So when HumaneWatch rather unwisely chose the Joplin Humane Society as its “Shelter of the Day” on Friday, it should have come as no surprise that its core members would revolt.

Bonnie Thompson Jensen repeated yet again the unfounded rumors of the humane society releasing animals to out-of-state rescue groups.

Gail Ledbetter bemoaned how the Joplin Humane Society allowed national groups to “take over” the shelter.

And Cheryl Nims, to the incredulity of a shelter manager in Minnesota, denounced the Joplin Humane Society, the HSUS, ASPCA, and rescue groups, all in one post.  She also claimed that local groups were turned away, despite the presence of the Humane Society of Missouri.

So what does a sane person do in the face of such irrational hate-filled diatribes?  They set the record straight, as the director of the Joplin Humane Society did in a series of posts on May 25:

And they hope their friends will step up in support, as we are doing today.

HumaneWatch Info condemns the lies, misinformation, and slander directed at the Joplin Humane Society, ASPCA, HSUS, and other rescue groups from sources such as HumaneWatch and VoteNoOnPropB.

While people like Sabra, Larkin, Cheri, Angie, Bonnie, Jessica, Gail and Cheryl are sitting behind their computers spreading malicious rumors, the local and national welfare groups have people on the ground actively working to help.

We salute these animal heroes, and urge everyone to support their work on behalf of animals affected by natural disasters and the families who love them.

If you’d like to donate, the Joplin Humane Society’s wish list is here – http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wedding/9NXFU5BUZCLK.  Urgent needs include 6-foot-high chain link dog panel fencing and swamp coolers to help cool the emergency shelter building.

If you’d like to volunteer, please use the volunteer sign-up form at http://www.controlledgo.com/AARC_JHS_FAQ.html.  Give your name, phone number(s) and availability. Someone will contact you to confirm your shift(s). Please do not just show up at the shelter.

And you can see some of the wonderful reunions of pets with their families here – http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.569815389308.2066417.107700024

Do HumaneWatchers know where THEIR money is spent?

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Anyone who is familiar with Richard Berman’s enterprises knows that deception is the key to his astroturf empire.

But seldom have we seen evidence of his deception shown as blatantly as in the Center for Consumer Freedom’s 2009 tax return.

The CCF — also known as HumaneWatch — describes its mission as “research and education on food, beverage and lifestyle issues”. But according to CCF’s tax return, a staggering 86% of donations to the organization were redirected to Berman’s union-busting campaign, the Employment Policies Institute Foundation (EPI). 86 cents out of every dollar donated to HumaneWatch or CCF was used to undermine working wages, employee health care, and labor unions.

How many HumaneWatch donors know that “educating consumers about lifestyle issues” means lobbying to strip workers of their health benefits and wages?

The remainder of CCF’s donations were redirected to Berman’s for-profit PR firm, Berman & Company, Inc., to the tune of $1,461,597.00. That left CCF $779,222.00 in the red for 2009, a shameful performance record that would earn it the lowest possible rating in any charity evaluator’s system — if CCF were significant enough to warrant an evaluation.

If there’s one lesson we can take away from this, it’s that Richard Berman cares about human rights as little as he cares about animal rights. What Richard Berman cares about is money, and finding creative ways of diverting it into his personal bank account.

Because Berman thrives on deception and obfuscation, he does not makes the tax returns for his “nonprofits” available online. However, we have assembled the most recent tax returns for his money-making enterprises in the Document Library.