NYC trial scrutinizing lavish NRA spending under Wayne LaPierre nears a close
NEW YORK — A New York lawsuit alleging National Rifle Association executives massively squandered millions of dollars of the nonprofit’s money on lavish perks for themselves is wrapping up after weeks of controversial testimony.
Closing arguments are expected Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court in the civil case brought by Attorney General Letitia James against the NRA, its former CEO Wayne LaPierre and three other NRA officials. Jury deliberations will follow.
The weeklong process has put a spotlight on the leadership, organizational culture and finances of the group, which was founded in New York City more than 150 years ago to promote marksmanship. Since then, it has grown into a political juggernaut capable of influencing federal legislation and presidential elections.
LaPierre, who had led the NRA’s day-to-day operations since 1991, announced his resignation just days before the trial started in early January.
James filed the lawsuit in 2020 under her authority to investigate nonprofits registered in the state. Her office alleges that LaPierre has evaded financial disclosure requirements while treating the NRA as his personal free-rider and generously dipping into the coffers for African safaris and other questionable major expenses.
LaPierre billed the NRA more than $11 million for private jet flights and spent more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over three years, prosecutors said. He also authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a salesman whose owners showered him with free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India — and access to a 110-foot yacht.
At the same time, they say, 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 oversaw his spending were in doubt.
Oliver North, best known for his central role in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, was among the prominent witnesses who took the stand.
The retired Marine Corps officer testified that he was forced to resign as president of the NRA after serving less than a year because he wanted an independent investigation into several financial irregularities.
Testifying over several days, LaPierre claimed he had not realized that travel tickets, hotel stays, meals, yacht access and other luxury perks counted as gifts. He also said the private jet flights were necessary because his prominent role in the national gun debate made it unsafe for him to fly commercially.
But LaPierre admitted that he improperly issued private flights for his family and accepted vacations from suppliers doing business with the gun rights nonprofit without disclosing them.
Prosecutors are asking the court to order LaPierre and his co-defendants — NRA general counsel John Frazer, retired chief financial officer Wilson Phillips and LaPierre’s ex-chief of staff Joshua Powell — to pay back the NRA, including forfeiting all salaries earned during misallocating money.
They also want the men not to hold leadership positions at charities doing business in New York.
The NRA, meanwhile, remains a strong but tarnished political force.
In recent years, the advocacy group has been plagued by financial problems, declining membership, infighting among board members and persistent questions about LaPierre’s leadership.
But at his peak, LaPierre was the strident voice of America’s gun rights movement.
Even as the nation was rocked by an unrelenting wave of mass shootings, he warned of “jackbooted government thugs” confiscating guns and demonized gun control advocates as “opportunists” who were “exploiting tragedy for profit.”
After a gunman killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, LaPierre blamed violent video games and called for armed guards at every school.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he claimed in a famous line that remains a rallying cry for gun rights advocates.
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Follow Philip Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.