This is really sick…
Fake Cancer Charities Gave Sick Kids Expired Meds and Little Debbie Cakes
Michael Daly
Only in America05.19.159:39 PM ET
The family behind four so-called cancer charities enriched themselves on donations while giving junk food and bad drugs to sufferers, the feds say—but they’re not facing jail time.
If you think the worst of us are behind bars, consider what you can be accused of doing and not face so much as a minute in jail:
You and your family can run four cancer charities that raise $187 million on false pretenses in the name of kids with cancer and women with breast cancer and the terminally ill of all ages—but spend less than 3 percent of that money on cancer victims.
Meanwhile, you can pay yourself and your relatives big salaries and over-generous bonuses while using donated funds to pay for cars, Disney World trips, jet ski outings, luxury travel, and college tuitions.
And you can use company credit cards for personal expenses, including meals at Hooters, gas, car washes, cellphone apps and games, iTunes songs, and dating website subscriptions, as well as ticket to concerts, sporting events, and movies.
“This is as about as bad as it can get: taking money away from cancer victims,” Jessica Rich, chief of the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection, told reporters as her agency and the attorneys general of all 50 states brought a complaint against Cancer Fund of America, Cancer Support Services, the Breast Cancer Society, and the Children’s Cancer Fund of America.
To make matters even worse, one of the charities allegedly used some of what little it did spend on cancer victims to furnish sick kids with expired antibiotics that are in fact contraindicated for children.
Another of the charities provided breast cancer victims with drugs that, in the words of a federal complaint, “are not typically used for the treatment of breast cancer and, in some instances, are not recommended for use by persons who have had cancer.”
“Some have even been associated with an increased risk of cancer,” notes the complaint filed this week by the Federal Trade Commission.
The charities are said to have passed along as “direct patient aid” such donated items as adult diapers, sample-size toiletries, and Little Debbie snack cakes.
“They make people happy,” James Reynolds Sr., patriarch of the extended Tennessee family that runs the four charities, is quoted as saying by the complaint.
Reynolds then switched to Moon Pies.
“They make you happier,” Reynolds supposedly said.
And, even though the clan managed to get the Little Debbie snack cakes, the Moon Pies, the adult diapers, and the rest for next to nothing, the charities are said to have claimed the retail amount in financial filings. The idea, apparently, was to make it look like they devoted more of the donations to cancer patients than what little they did.
All the while, the charities are said to have raised ever more money with false and misleading claims, passing themselves off as being “on the forefront for the fight against cancer” and “on the forefront of actually helping needy children with cancer.”
In an alleged effort to squeeze more money out of unsuspecting donors, the charities scripted such telemarketing pitches as, “I understand [your hesitation to give]; however, we never want to have to tell a family that is stretching their finances to the breaking point that, ‘We’re sorry, but the CANCER FUND has fallen short of its fundraising goal, so we won’t be able to provide you with a wig for your child to cover the hair loss due to chemotherapy.’”
Never mind that these charities did not have a program to provide wigs to sick children.
The charities also claimed: “We help cancer patients anywhere in the United States. Men, women, and children with over 240 types of cancer.”
And although they seem not to provide hospice care of any kind, they still claimed: “We also do the hospice care for the terminally ill…We’re the ones that do the hospice care for the cancer patients afflicted with cancer from infants to adults…One hundred percent of our proceeds go to hospice care.”
The complaint notes that in fact “100% of the donations do not go to hospice care.”
On top of all this, the companies allegedly claimed millions of dollars in tax deductions for items delivered to cancer patients—even though the charities purchased nothing but rather served only as a conduit, if the goods existed at all.
And James Reynolds Sr. awarded plum jobs not only to his son, wife, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law, but also to his ex-wife, his stepson, and even a step-nephew.
One of the supposed charities, the Breast Cancer Society, was run by Reynolds’s son, James Jr.; the Children’s Cancer Fund of America was run by Reynolds’s ex-wife, Rose Perkins. Both have agreed not to contest the complaint and to shut those two charities down.
Under the deal they cut with the feds, the son officially faces a judgment of $65 million, but that will be suspended after he pays just $75,000. Perkins is hit with a $30 million judgment, but that will be suspended without her paying a penny due to her supposed lack of funds.
In the meantime, the son is insisting on the Breast Cancer Society’s website that he has not admitted guilt to anything:
“While the organization, its officers and directors have not been found guilty of any allegations of wrongdoing, and the government has not proven otherwise, our Board of Directors has decided that it does not help those who we seek to serve, and those who remain in need, for us to engage in a highly publicized, expensive, and distracting legal battle around our fundraising practices.”
And the patriarch, James Reynolds Sr., is promising to fight the allegations against himself and the other two charities, Cancer Fund of America and Cancer Support Services.
The feds and the combined attorneys general are resolved to press their civil case against him.
But the most Reynolds Sr. presently risks is a monetary judgment that he may escape paying the way his son and his ex-wife did.
He faces not a minute behind bars, where the very worst of us supposedly reside.
One should never wish anybody to fall terminally ill, but if Reynolds Sr. does, let him eat Little Debbie snack cakes.
Or, better yet, Moon Pies.
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