Did You Expect The Jena Six Legal Fund To Pay Legal Costs?
I had hoped, but I didn’t expect this:
Just weeks after some 20,000 demonstrators protested what they decried as unequal justice aimed at six black teenagers in the Louisiana town of Jena, controversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers’ legal defense.
Parents of the “Jena 6″ teens have refused to publicly account for how they are spending a large portion of the cash, estimated at up to $250,000, that resides in a bank account they control.
Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated black radio host who is leading a major fundraising drive on behalf of the Jena 6, has declined to reveal how much he has collected. Attorneys for the first defendant to go to trial, Mychal Bell, say they have yet to receive any money from him.
Meanwhile, photos and videos are circulating across the Internet that raise questions about how the donated money is being spent. One photo shows Robert Bailey, one of the Jena 6 defendants, smiling and posing with $100 bills stuffed in his mouth. Another shows defendants Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis modeling like rap stars at the Black Entertainment Television Hip-Hop music awards last month in Atlanta.
The teenagers’ parents have strongly denied that they have misused any of the donated money. Bailey’s mother, for example, insisted that the $100 bills shown in the photograph were cash her son had earned as a park maintenance worker.
But civil rights leaders who helped organize support for the youths say they are concerned about the perceptions that are spreading.
“There are definitely questions out there about the money,” said Alan Bean, director of a Texas-based group, Friends of Justice, who was the first civil rights activist to investigate the Jena 6 case. “I hate to even address this issue because it inevitably will raise questions as to all of the money that has been raised, and that is going to hurt the defendants.”
H/T to Michelle Malkin
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November 12, 2007 - 09:03 PM on November 12th, 2007
I give up on mainstream black culture if they do not speak up and condemn these teenagers and their parents.
November 13, 2007 - 07:43 AM on November 13th, 2007
The truth is not material to the MSM. I doubt the Jena 6 were anything more than thugs and now they and their family have learned from Jesse Jackson how to cash in.
November 13, 2007 - 08:30 AM on November 13th, 2007
Why should parents who have ostensibly been irresponsible raising their kids suddenly be responsible now?
November 13, 2007 - 10:45 AM on November 13th, 2007
This should come as a surprise? Somehow I don’t think so.
The very idea that people who will gang up on another person and beat him, then try to escape justice through cries of racism aren’t going to be dishonest in other areas of their lives is ludicrous.
November 13, 2007 - 12:58 PM on November 13th, 2007
Why is the Media Good to Hillary?
When a politician is named Clinton he can usually be assured of good press, or no press at all if there is something bad going on. The same press that can’t wait to run to press with our nation’s secrets is much more respecting of the wishes of the …
November 13, 2007 - 01:38 PM on November 13th, 2007
State of Georgia turns to God
Out of answers and out of water, the Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue called for public prayer today to ask our Heavenly Father for much needed rain for his state.
As Georgia descends deeper into drought, Gov. Sonny Perdue has ordered water restrictio…
November 13, 2007 - 05:00 PM on November 13th, 2007
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November 13, 2007 - 06:36 PM on November 13th, 2007
Feel Good Story Of The Week
Patrick Hughes was born blind and unable to walk. Yet, today, the determined young man ‘marches’ in the University of Louisville’s marching band …