The longtime head of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, 74, has been found liable after allegations that he used his employer’s money for private jets and accepted expensive gifts.
LaPierre has now been ordered to pay $4.3 million in damages to the powerful gun rights group for his mismanagement and misspending of charitable funds.
During his jury trial, a New York court heard how LaPierre acted as the “King of the NRA,” spending lavishly on himself, punishing dissent and showering his allies with country club memberships and no-show contracts.
On Friday afternoon, he was found guilty of signing a $17 million contract with the NRA if he left the organization, and spending NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services and five-star travel.
La Pierre, also known as ‘Wayne’s World’, allegedly allowed insiders to waste tens of millions of dollars on five-star hotels, private jets and their favorite contractors.
LaPierre’s methods as executive vice president and CEO of the NRA allowed him to steer the powerful gun rights organization as the trial scrutinized his leadership and spending at the nonprofit.
LaPierre watched the proceedings stoically from a chair along the courtroom wall as six jurors and six alternates took their seats for the trial, which lasted nearly seven weeks. The jury began deliberating on February 16 and reached their verdict on Friday.
Wayne LaPierre, 74, has been found guilty of corruption after a six-week trial
Wayne LaPierre acted as the ‘king of the NRA,’ spending lavishly on himself, punishing dissent and showering his allies with country club memberships and no-show contracts.”
The experienced lobbyist built the NRA into a political power during the 32 years he was in charge.
LaPierre charged the organization more than $11 million for private jet flights over the years and authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a salesman whose owners repeatedly gave him access to a 100-foot yacht and free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India.
At the same time, LaPierre consolidated power and avoided control by hiring unqualified subordinates who looked the other way, channeling expenses through a supplier, falsifying invoices and retaliating against board members and executives who questioned his spending, Connell said .
In one example, Craig Spray, the NRA’s former chief financial officer, found himself unable to log into the organization’s computer system after objecting to LaPierre’s way of doing business.
In a November 2020 email to the organization’s brass, Spray took issue with the boss’s authoritarian rule, writing, “There are no ‘Wayne said’ endorsements at the NRA.”
LaPierre kept quiet about gifts he received from vendors until the morning he testified in the failed 2021 NRA bankruptcy in Texas, Connell said.
LaPierre, pictured with wife Susan, claimed the lawsuit was politically motivated after she vowed to go after the NRA ahead of Letitia James’ appointment as attorney general.
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the NRA, LaPierre and three current or former executives in 2020, alleging they cost the organization tens of millions of dollars due to questionable spending.
LaPierre was accused of agreeing to a $17 million contract with the NRA if he left the organization. He spent NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services and five-star travel
LaPierre, pictured with his wife and the late Shawn and Larry King, was re-elected as NRA chief in 2021 despite the controversies
Years earlier, she said, he had checked “no” on an internal disclosure form that asked whether he had received gifts worth more than $300.
LaPierre’s actions, and those of the “entrenched leadership” that enabled his alleged behavior, “breached the trust” of the organization’s five million members, Connell said.
Their conduct violated the laws applicable to not-for-profit charities and the organization’s internal policies regarding travel, expenses, conflicts of interest and whistleblower protection, she said.
“They acted illegally over and over again for years,” Connell told jurors.
New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2020 sued the NRA, LaPierre and three current or former executives, saying they cost the organization tens of millions of dollars due to questionable spending.
In recent years, however, the organization has been plagued by financial problems, declining membership and infighting.
LaPierre has defended himself in the past, testifying in another proceeding that his hunting trips were a “safety haven” as he faced threats after mass shootings.
The other defendants, NRA General John Frazer and retired CFO Wilson Phillips, have denied wrongdoing.
Another ex-NRA executive turned whistleblower, Joshua Powell, reached a settlement with James’ office on Friday. He has agreed to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000 and refrain from further involvement with the nonprofit.
The NRA trial took place in the same Manhattan courtroom as former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial
LaPierre, pictured at a 2022 NRA meeting with Donald Trump, has been found liable for embezzling millions of dollars to pay for his lavish lifestyle
One private jet flight, from Washington, DC to Dallas, Texas, with a stop in Nebraska to pick up LaPierre’s niece, cost the NRA $59,000. Another, with a pit stop in Nebraska on the way to Orlando, Florida, cost the organization $79,000.
Under an NRA policy shown in court, the organization only reimburses airline flights with coaches. A commercial flight on the same routes would have cost no more than a few hundred dollars per person, the listings show.
James, a Democrat, is the state’s top law enforcement official and has regulatory power over state-based nonprofits such as the NRA.
James initially tried to shut down the organization, but a judge rejected that as a remedy.
The jury found that he had caused the NRA $5.4 million in damages by breaching his legal duties, but he proved that he had already repaid just over $1 million to the charity.
The NRA trial took place in the same Manhattan courtroom as former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.
LaPierre resigned at the end of January. The NRA said he left for health reasons.
The NRA was founded as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 by Union Army officers who wanted to improve marksmanship among soldiers after the Civil War.