New Mexico Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Korsmo has ordered the U.S. Navy Veterans Association charity to stop fundraising in New Mexico, the St. Petersburg Times reported today. The paper’s investigative series on the charity found that telemarketers and fund-raising companies hired by the group keep up to 90 percent of the money raised from donors, and that most of the organization’s offices around the nation are little more than mail drops. The group’s members, officers and auditors could not be found by reporters.
The New Mexico chapter is listed as donating $132,506 in food, shelter, clothing, direct cash assistance and medical and dental care to indigent veterans and families in New Mexico, according to IRS records obtained by The Independent. However, no details are offered about where exactly the money and donations were spent, or what hospitals or health clinics were paid. More …