Captain's Quarters -

When the news first broke about Air America's executive Evan Cohen using his paid position at the nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club to funnel government funds into his liberal radio netlet, people found it strange that Cohen worked both jobs at the same time, drawing significant salaries at each. It turns out that Cohen had company, as Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney report in their latest installment on the scandal that threatens to derail Air America: What Air America has failed to disclose is that at least one other of its officials held a key job at Gloria Wise. Yesterday, we confirmed with Martta Rose of Rubenstein Public Relations, which is representing the Boys & Girls Club branch, that Air America's Vice President of Finance, Sinohe Terrero, worked at the inner-city charity as finance director from 2000-2002 under Cohen. Though he left Gloria Wise for Air America before...

David Lombino at the New York Sun continues to out-hustle the Paper of Record on the ever-widening scandal at Air America involving the transmission of government grant money from Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. In his report today, Lombino discovers that Air America lacks confidence in its creditor's legitimacy: A spokesman for Gloria Wise, Jim Grossman of Rubenstein Public Relations, said yesterday Piquant has "agreed in principle to return the money, but there is no schedule and no money back - no timetable." "All they have done is put something in an escrow fund," he said. "Lawyers for Gloria Wise are trying to get this into some formal agreement." Air America contends that Mr. Grossman's characterization is misleading, and that an agreement has been reached between Piquant and the club that includes a timetable for a "voluntary repayment of loans made to Evan Cohen and Progress Media," according to...

The New York Sun takes on the Air America story today and advances it by leaps and bounds, talking with the president of the non-profit which had its money taken by Air America founder Evan Cohen. It turns out that Cohen didn't just get money for the netlet, but also managed to get plenty for his own pockets as well while sitting on the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club board: Initially, members of the executive committee viewed Mr. Cohen fondly because he had thrown a tremendously successful fund-raising affair for Gloria Wise in Manhattan last year. They recalled being impressed by the wealthy clientele and the large sums of money he raised, according to Ms. Graves. Because of that confidence in Mr. Cohen, she said, the executive committee approved two loans to Air America, one for $80,000 and another for $87,000. Ms. Capell said she had met Mr. Cohen...

Radio Equalizer and Michelle Malkin have followed a scandal in New York that, given the involvement of the nationally-broadcast Air America, should have received national media attention by now. It turns out that the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Clubs almost had to shut its doors following a funding shortfall despite receiving a half-million dollars in grant money and much more in city contracts, getting rescued at the last moment by other independent groups. The $500K in grant money had been loaned out -- to Air America: The nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and its affiliate Pathways for Youth found their city contracts, running into the millions of dollars, abruptly ended last month by the city Department of Investigation. ... He said he and other elected officials are still in the dark over the exact nature of the probe. In its initial announcement, the DOI said it was...

The New York Sun's David Lombino follows up today on the Air America scandal with news that the loan payback from Piquant Media has lost something in the translation -- namely, the interest owed on it. Piquant Media finally agreed to pay back the $875,000 Evan Cohen misappropriated from Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Clubs for his own personal use and to fund Air America when the netlet seemed ready to collapse. They want to extend payments over two years, but Lombino reports that Piquant will not pay interest on what documents show was supposed to be a loan from Gloria Wise (emphasis mine): An employee of Air America, who requested anonymity, said yesterday that it received a letter from the city Department of Investigation recommending that the network set up an attorney-managed escrow account for the payments, rather than pay Gloria Wise directly or wait until the department's investigation...

Brian at Radio Equalizer, who first broke the story on Air America's grasping of funds meant for poor children and Alzheimers patients, now posts the official response from the liberal talk-radio network on the scandal: "On MAY 24, 2004 the newly formed PIQUANT LLC acquired the principal assets of AIR AMERICA RADIO from the prior ownership entities. PIQUANT has owned and operated AIR AMERICA RADIO since that time. The company that had run AIR AMERICA RADIO till then no longer had anything to do with the network. "PIQUANT had no involvement whatsoever with funds from GLORIA WISE BOYS &GIRLS CLUB. PIQUANT neither received nor expended any of the sums that are the subject of the City's investigation of the CLUB. "PIQUANT is not being investigated by the City, which is investigating a transaction that took place before PIQUANT existed." Unfortunately for Piquant, when they bought Air America, they bought its...

Al Franken addressed the funding scandal at Air America for the first time on the air yesterday, the New York Post reports. Fortunately for AA listeners, Franken clearly identified the real victim of the misappropriated government grants and questionable loans from Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Clubs. It wasn't the poor kids or the Alzheimer's patients -- it was ... Al Franken: "About three weeks into the life of Air America, I became an involuntary investor — I stopped being paid," Franken told listeners yesterday on WLIB (1190 AM). It was the first time the all-liberal network's biggest star addressed at length a controversial $875,000 loan from the disgraced — and now de-funded — Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. Since The Post first reported the story on July 30, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced an investigation into the social services agency whose development director, Evan M. Cohen, was also...

Today's New York Post reports that one of Air America's assertions about their attempts to repay the $875,000 to Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club is "inaccurate". Piquant Media issued an announcement a few days ago that the AA parent company wanted to start reimbursing the Bronx charity non-profit, but could not do so until instructed by New York City's Department of Investigations, which has an open case on the money transfers between Gloria Wise and Air America. The DOI says, "Who, us?": Air America's foot-dragging on repaying $875,000 borrowed from a beleaguered Boys & Girls Club in The Bronx has nothing to do with a probe of the club's controversial loans, city investigators said yesterday. Officials at the ultra-liberal radio network have repeatedly said Air America intends to repay the money, but claimed they put those plans on hold because of the city probe. "We're waiting for directions from...

Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin have covered the sordid mess between Air America and Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, in which $875,000 in government grants wound up in AAR's coffers during a period of extreme financial instability. While taking earmarked grant money from poor kids and Alzheimer's patients provides enough embarrassment for any company, the excuses given by AAR parent Piquant Media that claimed the responsibility for that transaction belonged with the original ownership of AAR caused a number of bloggers to look into the unusual sale of Progress Media to Piquant. Unusual it was indeed, since most of the owners of Progress wound up owning Piquant as well. Now Brian and Michelle have spent the last couple of weeks doing the kind of journalistic research that has eluded the New York Times to discover that the sale has been determined by at least one New York court to...

Today's New York Post reports that New York's headline-grabbing Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has finally decided to look into the shady business dealings between Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and Air America. For jurisdictional purposes, the focus of Spitzer's investigation will start with Gloria Wise, but if allegations of fraud and forgery prove true, Spitzer will no doubt have to expand the scope of his probe: State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer yesterday opened an investigation into the Bronx social-services agency that made $875,000 in bizarre loans to Air America radio, The Post has learned. "We are looking into it in consultation with the city's Department of Investigation," Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp revealed. The highly unusual loans to the left-wing radio network were made by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club — which was visited by one of Spitzer's investigators yesterday, officials said. Dopp said Spitzer's probe is examining...

Investors Business Daily publishes an editorial about the Air America funding scandal that took almost a million dollars from a Bronx non-profit. IBD asks, as we have, why the Exempt Media has gone AWOL: New York City's Department of Investigation is looking into charges that $875,000 from a Bronx nonprofit group and an affiliate whose budgets are generously stuffed with local, state and federal grants was inappropriately used to fund Air America, the left's counterattack on the colossal success of conservative talk radio. The two groups — the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and Pathways for Youth — said they thought they were making a loan to the network. But when Evan Montvel Cohen was working as both chairman of Air America and director of development for Gloria Wise, some red flags should have been raised. Jeannette Graves, president of Gloria Wise's executive committee, has said that without her...

CQ reader and New York attorney Eric O. Costello, Esq. has followed the Air America story over the past several days here at CQ, Michelle Malkin, and Radio Equalizer. He sent me an e-mail this morning that comprehensively looks at the legal issues surrounding the transfer of $875,000 from a Bronx non-profit to Air America -- and also the notion floated by Al Franken that a "forensic" investigation had already brought this to Piquant Media's attention. Mr. Costello has kindly consented to publication of his observations: I am a lawyer, admitted in New York State since 1992, with a fair amount of experience in corporate transactions (I used to do a lot of corporate/SEC work -- I'm mostly in litigation, these days). I also was on the board of directors of a not-for-profit corporation for over a decade, serving as one of that corporation's officers as well. Please excuse any...

The New York Times has ended its hermitage in tomorrow's edition by finally reporting on the financial scandal in its own back yard. Alan Feuer reports on the ongoing Air America funding scandal, and manages to make it more boring than a blotter report for a weekly suburban freebie: The state attorney general's office and the city's Department of Investigation are looking into whether a boys and girls club serving poor children and ailing elderly people in the Bronx had improper financial dealings, including loans to the Air America radio network, state and city officials said yesterday. The separate investigations are trying to determine whether the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, run from an office in Co-op City in the Bronx, made improper loans of up to $875,000 to the radio network, known for its liberal programming and hosts like the comedian Al Franken, the officials said. Investigators from...

The New York Post reports this morning that high-level executive departures have rocked Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in the wake of the disclosure of almost a million dollars in loans and transfers of government grants to Evan Cohen and Air America. GW also refuted a key claim of Air America in its attempt to distance itself from the shady dealings that kept it on the air: Just days after the executive director abruptly resigned following Post reports that the club had provided $875,000 in bizarre loans to Air America, two other top officials at the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club have quit. Acting executive director Lorraine Corva — who took over after Charles Rosen suddenly resigned last week — will be leaving her job on Aug. 26, sources said. Assistant executive director Jeff Aulenback also resigned, effective immediately, sources said. Their departures from the embattled social-services agency...

Once again, CQ's resident legal analyst Eric Costello, Esq reviews the latest developments on the Air America story -- this time, the question of the ownership change. In an e-mail to CQ, Eric points out a number of legal issues raised in the transfer of assets from Progress to Piquant: As usual, the latest installment of the l'affaire Air America has been read with great interest. Here's my reactions (for public use as you see fit): (1) The term of art that is implicated here, I believe, is what is known as a "fraudulent conveyance," a legal term that goes back a long way. A legal dictionary definition (rather simplifying the concept, of course) of this term is "a conveyance of property without any consideration of value, for the purpose of delaying or bindering creditors. Such a transfer will, when proven to the satisfaction of judge or jury, be declared...

The transfer of public funds earmarked for poor children and Alzheimers patients to Air America by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club board -- which included Air America founder Evan Cohen -- did not disappear into oblivion, as Piquant Media obviously hoped it would with its initial statement on Wednesday. Thanks to fine work and dogged pursuit by Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin, Piquant has adjusted its tone ... somewhat: If the allegations of mismanagement and corruption at Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club are true, it is absolutely disgraceful. As reported in the Wall Street Journal and the HBO Documentary, Left of the Dial‚ the company that the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club officials gave money to, Progress Media, has been defunct since May 2004. That company was run at the time by Evan Cohen who has not had any involvement in Air America Radio since May...

David Lombino has another installment in the emerging financing scandal at Air America that Brian Maloney first uncovered last week. Today, Lombino publishes an interview with Al Franken that demolishes attempts by Air America supporters to defend the netlet from its connection to potential wire fraud and misappropriation of government grant money intended for poor kids and Alzheimer's patients (via Michelle Malkin): Mr. Franken said he has learned details of the story only in the last week. He said Piquant LLC, current owner and operator of the radio network, found a record of the transfers while conducting a "forensic" investigation into the finances of the previous owner, Progress Media, which was run by Mr. Cohen. That internal probe was conducted before the city agency became involved, Mr. Franken said. Efforts by The New York Sun to reach Mr. Cohen for comment in recent days have been unsuccessful. A Piquant spokesman...

Michelle Malkin wants to help Al Franken in her new column this week. He recently talked about the revelations of financial malfeasance at his employer, but found it difficult to maintain any interest in the fact that they took money from poor kids and Alzheimer's patients in order to pay his talent fees: The Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club has been duped out of a reported $875,000 meant for poor children and elderly Alzheimer's patients. Evan Montvel-Cohen, the former chairman of the much-hyped liberal radio network Air America, is at the center of the erupting scandal. Air America radio host Al Franken, punctuating his discussion with nervous laughter, called Cohen a "crook" on his show last week and confessed to his left-wing audience that "I think he was robbing Peter to pay Paul." ... Curiously, Air America has shown little interest in urging law enforcement officials to track...

Earlier, New York attorney Eric Costello reviewed the known facts and allegations surrounding the scandal at Air America and gave us his trenchant observations. He laid out the possibilities for legal action and criminal investigation, if the reporting from the New York Sun and the blogosphere proved correct. In a follow-up e-mail, he reviews the applicable laws in more depth and points out where Air America and Gloria Wise might face some tough scrutiny, assuming Eliot Spitzer ever decides to get involved. Further to my email of this morning, I had a bit of free time on my hands, so I went spelunking into the various areas of New York State laws and regulations regarding not-for-profits. A few items of interest turned up, which I pass on to you for whatever you think it's worth. You may quote me on this. In this email, "EL" stands for the Executive Law,...

The New York Sun's David Lombino continues to put his cross-town rivals to shame in covering the scandal at Air America. Today, he reveals that David Goodfriend has submitted an affadavit in the Metro lawsuit seeking $1.5 million in back fees from Piquant that states the former executive objected to the "fraudulent conveyance" of Progress Media's asset sale to Piquant, and received threats from Air America owners as a result: A Clinton administration official who served as a top executive of Air America, the politically liberal radio network, says he was "sickened" to his core by the thought that the network was funded by money taken from a Bronx Boys & Girls Club. The former White House official, David Goodfriend, said that Air America's investors created a new company soon after discovering the transfers. They were motivated, he said, in part by a desire to avoid the $875,000 liability to...

Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney continue their groundbreaking series on the Air America financial scandal, this time taking direct aim at the netlet's number-one asset: Al Franken. It turns out that Franken has lied to his listeners about his ignorance of the heavy debts that Evan Montvel Cohen rang up in an attempt to float Air America and during the asset sale that now appears to have been a fraudulent conveyance. How do we know this? Michelle and Brian have turned up an agreement with Franken's signature -- an agreement that made Franken a key player in the series of transactions that resulted in the fraudulent conveyance: Along with the network's current management and shell-game-playing owners, Al Franken has gotten a pass, even from some conservative commentators who have claimed that it's unfair to blame the liberal radio network's financial and legal entanglements on its on-air talent. Those claims are...

For most newspapers, having an out-of-town paper beat you to a story in your own back yard would prove terribly embarrassing. Not for the New York Times, apparently, as a paper publishing over 2,000 miles from the Bronx has managed to notice the unfolding scandal of Air America's misappropriation of almost a million dollars in city grants and other monies from a non-profit. Arizona Republic columnist Doug MacEachern scolds the Exempt Media, especially the Gray Lady, in allowing this story to continue, as he puts it, moving forward "like a Mack truck in first gear": A private media start-up with huge political pretensions and meager financial underpinnings uses taxpayer dollars from a Boys & Girls Club to help pay the salaries of high-profile hosts like comedian Al Franken. As a result of these dubious loans and other self-dealing, the Gloria Wise club will be sending no more poor kids from...

Brian Maloney has the latest installment of the Air America disgrace that revealed the liberal radio netlet's misuse of government funds under founder Evan Cohen's direction. Leftist bloggers have begun their inevitable backlash defending Air America, calling the story "phony" and irrelevant to Air America by trying to distingush between AA and its original owner, Progress Media -- which only had the one asset and whose chief executive sat on the board of the non-profit it helped to bankrupt through this "loan". Well, the Left simply hasn't caught up to reality. Air America said in its second press release on this matter that it planned to pay back the money, a very strange thing to do if it didn't take it in the first place. As I pointed out yesterday, it's also a very convenient position to take -- considering that Gloria Wise has gone bankrupt and closed its doors....

Today we will hold a contest to see how the Exempt Media coverage of Air America's funding scandals holds up against that of another stoy of financial shenanigans. Let's take a look at how many articles the Exempt Media has written about the Air America-Gloria Wise misappropriation of public funds, as opposed to the Martha Stewart insider-trading case -- in the past 30 days: Media outlet.....AA/GW......Martha NY Times..........0...........16* Wash Post.........0..........10 (14 day search) LA Times..........0..........3 CBS News..........0..........1 ABC News..........0.........4 What does this show? The Exempt Media has plenty of resources to continue coverage of a single celebrity who allegedly engaged in insider trading over 4,000 shares of ImClone stock, avoiding $51,000 in losses when bad news hit just afterwards. (Stewart wasn't convicted for insider trading, but obstruction of justice and perjury.) That amounts to 1/18th of what Air America got in misappropriated public funds by sucking money out of Bronx...

The ongoing financing scandal at Air America took a cynical twist in the last twenty-four hours. Brian Maloney, who broke the original story to the blogosphere, now reports that an internal memo from AAR host Randi Rhodes proposes using a private corporate jet to take her and her show to Crawford, Texas -- so that she can take advantage of all the publicity surrounding Cindy Sheehan: Also, transporation is an issue, because it will take me a whole day to travel. I don't want to miss a day on the air, and lose momentum. Flight to Dallas, on to Waco and then to Craford by car. So I was hoping that someone in the company would let me use their jet? I could take Steve with me and leave after Thursday's show. Perhaps I missed something, but Air America and Piquant Media has a debt of almost a million dollars...