Lawsuit alleges a charity turned into a wallet
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has sued We Push for Peace, founder Trahern Pollard, and former director Jaclyn McGuigan. The state says the group, created in 2016 to help reduce violence in Minneapolis, treated nonprofit money like a private account. The lawsuit claims more than $6 million was steered toward Pollard’s personal benefit, including trips, vehicle purchases, business support, and even payments tied to child support. The irony is thick enough to need its own filing system. A nonprofit is supposed to serve the public, not act like a speed bump on the way to someone’s side hustle.
The money trail runs through cars, clubs, and side businesses
The complaint says funds went to Las Vegas trips, Harley-Davidson purchases, a used-car business, Merwin Liquors in north Minneapolis, and a $35,000 “Chicago Payroll” payment that prosecutors say was really money for Pollard’s friends. Ellison says McGuigan allegedly moved $1,000 a week into her own account and also tapped government grant money for “administrative” costs. Bureaucracy loves a tidy label, especially when it is covering something messy. Prosecutors also say Pollard used nonprofit money to pay child support and settle a personal IRS bill, which is one way to stretch the meaning of overhead until it snaps.
State investigators say the group could not deliver
The lawsuit says the organization was unable to help when Minneapolis asked for support during Operation Metro Surge, a Homeland Security enforcement effort. Prosecutors also say Pollard filed false statements under penalty of perjury, including claims that a child support payment was nonprofit overhead and that the $35,000 payout was Chicago payroll. When state investigators pressed harder, Pollard allegedly formed a fake for-profit arm just days after the attorney general’s office began asking questions. That move may not have been subtle, but it did fit the modern public-relations playbook: deny, relabel, improvise, then hope no one reads the receipts.
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