Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

The ongoing DOGE revelations prove that leftists feel absolutely no compunction about stealing money from taxpayers. Given that, and the revelations of where all those #BlackLivesMatter dollars ended up, perhaps it’s not surpirsing that more and more obviously feel no compunction about stealing from their own organizations.

A prominent diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit declared bankruptcy this month after its board accused its founder and top employees of stealing millions of dollars, a Daily Wire investigation found. Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey are set to keynote a conference run by the alleged thief, apparently through his for-profit firm, next month.

The National Diversity Council filed for bankruptcy on March 17 after its board said in a lawsuit that its founder R. Dennis Kennedy “improperly paid himself millions of dollars from NDC’s donor funds.” The suit said Kennedy “paid himself a grossly excessive salary” while using the nonprofit as a front for his for-profit diversity consulting business called Diversity & Leadership Inc (D&L).

The group’s 2020 IRS disclosure said Kennedy was paid $450,000 for 10 hours of work per week.

Nice work if you can get it.

In 2022, at the height of corporations’ DEI hype, Kennedy, chief executive officer Ángeles Valenciano, and chief financial officer Jason deGroot also “unilaterally decided that they were owed almost $3 million in ‘back pay,’ and then paid themselves more than $1 million of donor funds,” the lawsuit said.

Working the levers of the White Guilt Machine is evidently labor so grueling that it requires no less than a million bucks to perform.

As board members became suspicious and determined that there was no basis for the payments, Kennedy systematically moved the nonprofit’s trademarks and web domains into his own name, and essentially created a fake organization with the same name that would trick people into paying him directly, the suit indicated.

“Kennedy, Valenciano, and deGroot conspired to protect their scheme and ill-gotten gains by attempting to destroy NDC and move its resources and partnerships to another organization where they could continue exploiting donors’ funds and the organization’s resources with minimal oversight,” it said.

The suit said the trio’s conduct “gives rise to criminal liability…at a minimum, a third degree felony.”

NationalDiversityCouncil.org now leads to a website of an organization that purports to be the National Diversity Council, listing Kennedy as its founder and no board. Dawn Hooper, an accountant who is managing the bankruptcy for NDC’s board, told The Daily Wire that the site is “not operated by the National Diversity Council.”

In addition to the for-profit D&L Inc., Kennedy ran two Texas-based nonprofits, the Texas Diversity Council and the California Diversity Council, which were used to double-dip on salaries for the trio and siphon off consulting revenue from NDC, while using NDC staff and resources for all the groups’ expenses, the lawsuit said.

According to tax disclosures, in 2021 Kennedy was paid $787,000 in salary by the national nonprofit and $351,113 from the Texas one; Valenciano was paid $460,000 from NDC and $133,000 from Texas; and deGroot was paid $460,000 from national and $123,000 from Texas. The IRS filings claim Valenciano and deGroot worked 40 hours a week for the Texas nonprofit while also working 35 hours a week for the national nonprofit. They also claim Kennedy worked 40 hours a week for the Texas nonprofit, which would leave little time for his many for-profit ventures or the national nonprofit.

75 hours a week! “Jason deGroot was a graft-driving man…”

A tax form provided to help attendees pay for conference tickets indicates that the payment would go to D&L Inc. According to Texas business filings, D&L Inc.’s corporate registration was revoked in March 2023 for failure to pay taxes, but was reinstated two months later.

The fake NDC website says “The National Diversity & Leadership Conference celebrates its 25th year as one of the largest and most prestigious events dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and beyond. This year’s conference will feature an inspiring keynote address by Oprah Winfrey.” The conference site says that Bill Clinton, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, and left-wing professor Cornel West will also keynote. Conference-goers can meet them for $4,999.

In 2024, in what was advertised as the conference’s 21st year, Hillary Clinton, Magic Johnson, Castro, and Eric Holder spoke.

Most of those names are long-time grifters, but you wouldn’t think that Oprah or Magic would need the money.

For $8,900, participants could “take photos with each keynote speaker listed on the Speakers page except for Hillary Clinton.”

Man, the cost for these photo ops has radically increased in my lifetime. These things used to be $50-100 bucks. Also, just how much egoboo does a picture with Eric Holder get you?

And nearly ten grand and you don’t get a picture with Hillary. Just how special does she think she is these days?

Or maybe it takes several glasses of wine for her to get through these things, and she’s simply in no condition to stand around with the grubby peasants.

For the diversity industry, it’s grift all the way down, all the time…

Tags: Angeles Valenciano, bankruptcy, Bill Clinton, California, California Diversity Council, Cornel West, Crime, Daily Wire, DEI, Democrats, Eric Holder, fraud, Hillary Clinton, Jason deGroot, Julian Castro, Lawsuit, Luke Rosiak, Magic Johnson, National Diversity Council, Oprah Winfrey, R. Dennis Kennedy, scam, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas Diversity Council

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2025 at 11:40 AM and is filed under Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.