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  The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-26-2008 |
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The Nation's #1 Independent Veterans Web Site Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 06-26-2008 |
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"It's a scam - flat-out a scam, and it makes me mad. It upsets me...I take this kind of thing seriously."
For more about Korean War veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine...click here... Story here... http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=15313 Story below:
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Korean War vet fighting
a new battle
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He credits the direct mail campaign for producing
"people we can (solicit) to raise the rest of the money."
"The startup costs are just unbelievable, but yet we are still sanctioned
by all the states that we solicit in," he said.
One direct-mail firm hired by the nonprofit for $30,000 a month, the
Compass Group, alleges it was never paid and recently filed a
breach-of-contract suit for more than $1 million in U.S. District Court in
Illinois.
Pring, a prominent Spokane Valley civic leader, philanthropist and former
school board president, said: "When you raise $2.3 million in donations
and only $105,000 of that goes to the purpose of the
charity,
there's something wrong."
Pring said it particularly angers him that the charity has spent 10 years
using the Korean War "as a front" to raise $6 million that apparently went
to fundraising expenses and salaries of the nonprofit's staff.
"It puts a little tear in my eye, I can't tell you any other way," Pring
said. "It makes me mad, it makes me sad to think this group is living off
something like this.
"There were a lot of boys that lost their lives over there in Korea."
The last letter Pring received from the nonprofit, in late May, noted it's
been more than 55 years since the war in Korea began.
"Please search your heart for the best possible donation you can send,"
the letter said, urging donors to quickly respond using an "emergency
reply form."
Since filing its last financial report in 2006, the Korean War National
Museum charity has made a one-third down payment on a $600,000
environmentally contaminated parking lot in Springfield, Ill., Sassorossi
said. The charity hopes to eventually build an $18.4 million museum on the
site.
Sassorossi's group is asking for $570,000 in government subsidies to clean
up the environmental mess on the newly purchased land while it leases
temporary headquarters in a former drugstore in downtown Springfield. The
walk-in site will be equipped with a flat-screen TV showing videos to
attract more donors, Sassorossi said.
When the "Korean War Veterans National Museum & Library" was formed in
1998, then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan promised $40 million in state funds
to get the organization going on a 22-acre farm field near Tuscola, Ill.
The government funds never materialized before Ryan went to federal prison
last year for fraud and racketeering.
As a result, Sassorossi said, the nonprofit group has had to rely entirely
on private donations.
He told the Chicago Tribune in 2006 that his group's work was "like those
guys in Korea going up Pork Chop Hill. They didn't make it to the top the
first time, but they kept trying."
Individual donors, whom he wouldn't identify on Friday, have looked at the
organization's $6.01 million in donations and $5.86 million in
expenditures over the past decade "and have accepted that" as costs of
getting the organization going, Sassorossi said.
"We've put part down on land and we've had some pre-construction costs,"
the director of the nonprofit said.
"We are moving forward. I mean, whatever money we've had so far we've
spent on marketing, trying to get this group off the ground."
The nonprofit's Form 990 for 2007 must be filed with the Internal Revenue
Service and the Illinois attorney general's office by June 30. Sassorossi
said he couldn't estimate the revenue and expenditure figures for 2007.
The Illinois attorney general's office, which monitors nonprofit groups
and charities, has not received any complaints, said spokeswoman Natalie
Bauer.
The Better Business Bureau in central Illinois also hasn't received any
complaints, said spokeswoman Nancy Poe, and the Korean War National Museum
has not registered with the BBB.
Back in Spokane Valley, Pring said he not only won't give another dime, he
also intends to pursue the matter with appropriate federal and state
authorities, "and anybody else that'll listen."
"I'm not going to let it drop," he said. "It's just that simple."
The 77-year-old businessman acknowledged he and his wife have generously
donated in the past to various charities, usually anonymously and
particularly to veterans groups. In past years, he has mailed donations to
the Korean War museum, before the recent letters sparked his suspicions.
"Intuition, in business or anything else, you got to lead with it a bit,"
he said last week in his Spokane Valley office. "I set this letter aside
for a bit. It just didn't ring right."
Then he called the attorney general's office in New Jersey, which keeps a
detailed national database of donations and expenditures. He was told the
Korean War National Museum, granted nonprofit status by the IRS, raised
$2.29 million in 2006 and spent $2.24 million.
Pring said government regulators haven't been eager to listen to his
concerns. When he called the Washington state attorney general's office,
he was told to fill out a complaint form that mistakenly was sent to the
nonprofit agency instead of Pring's office.
Back on the phone, Pring told the attorney general: "Hey, I'm an old
Korean War vet. I take this kind of thing seriously, and I think it's a
scam."
When an assistant attorney general responded that it "takes a lot of money
to raise money," Pring said he responded that such a ratio of
revenue-to-costs was simply a bad business deal.
"Patriotism is a pretty damn good commodity," Pring said. "When we get
groups like this and we don't step up and protect our interests a little
bit or at least expect a much more fair shake, there's something wrong,
don't you think?"
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posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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