Tyrone Brooks, Georgia Legislator, Is Defended by Ex-Gov. Roy Barnes on Fraud Charges – NYTimes.com

The indictment says Mr. Brooks created a personal bank account to divert about $300,000 in donations to the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, of which he has been president since 1993. The money was supposed to finance voter registration drives, programs to fight child hunger and rehabilitate felons and other community efforts.

The government also claims Mr. Brooks used for his personal expenses nearly $800,000 that was donated to Universal Humanities, a charity he formed in 1990. Its purpose, at least on paper, was to help teach literacy and mentor the underprivileged.

The group exists in name only, according to the indictment. There are no offices, staff or evidence of actual programming. The board lists a number of individuals, some of whom had no idea they were on it.

The chairwoman is listed as Emma Gresham, 88, who had been a teacher and, for 17 years, the mayor of Keysville, Ga., a town near Augusta with fewer than 200 people, the majority of them African-American.

via Tyrone Brooks, Georgia Legislator, Is Defended by Ex-Gov. Roy Barnes on Fraud Charges – NYTimes.com.