Anti-police activist accused of using charitable donations to fund lavish

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A leftist anti-police activist is accused of spending thousands in donations on “lavish vacations and shopping sprees.”

In a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued Brandon Anderson and Raheem AI, his “police transparency and accountability” nonprofit organization, for allegedly violating nonprofit and workers’ rights laws.

“Brandon Anderson misused charitable donations to fund lavish vacations and shopping sprees, and the Raheem AI Board of Directors let him get away with it,” Schwalb said in a statement. “Not only did their financial abuses violate fundamental principles of nonprofit governance, but Anderson and Raheem AI failed to pay their employee the wages they had earned. My office will not allow people to masquerade behind noble causes while violating the law, cheating taxpayers, or stealing from their workers.”

The tax-exempt nonprofit corporation claimed its mission was to “empower communities to achieve greater police transparency and accountability,” using donations to “equip black, brown, and Indigenous community crisis responders with the tools, training, connections, and funding they need to provide care.”

But those funds, according to the attorney general, were used to provide Anderson, the organization’s founder and executive director, with a “luxurious lifestyle” while failing to pay the only DC-based employee “the wages she had earned and required her to sign an illegal non-compete clause.” That former employee, Jasmine Banks, blew the whistle on the spending as she brought concerns to the board and then the AG.

Anderson is accused of diverting $75,000 of donations for his own personal use, spending “over $40,000 on a luxury vacation rental service” and ” $10,000 on hotels and Airbnb’s for personal travel – including to a Cancun resort, $10,000 on designer clothing brands, and $5,000 on emergency veterinary services,” according to a news release from the DC attorney general’s office.

The organization failed to oversee the spending, giving Anderson “unrestricted control of its finances” while not having a treasurer since 2020.

“With this lawsuit, OAG is seeking a Court order to dissolve Raheem AI as a District nonprofit corporation, recover misused funds and direct them to appropriate charitable purposes, permanently bar Anderson from serving as an officer or director of any District nonprofit, award Raheem AI’s Deputy Director the wages she is owed plus damages, and award penalties to the District for each violation of the WCPL,” the AG’s office noted.

Since its founding in 2017, Raheem AI brought in about $4.4 million in donations. Anderson wanted to build “a world without police” and wanted to replace 911 calls.

Anderson’s personal story was purportedly the reason behind his anti-police activism. It allegedly involved the 2017 death of his partner in Oklahoma at the hands of police. But the New York Times reported in August that it “found no evidence of the killing that Mr. Anderson has described. No homicide in the entire state of Oklahoma involved a man named Raheem, nor did any match the particulars of the officer-involved death Mr. Anderson had described.”

He was himself arrested in 2014 on assault charges which were later dropped, however.

“It hurts my heart to say it, but I think it was a con from the beginning,” Banks told the Times.

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.