Fulton County grand jury to look into SCLC accounts

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Fulton County grand jury will look into allegations that two top Southern Christian Leadership Conference officers used SCLC funds for their own benefit, according to two board members.

One of them, Chairman Raleigh Trammell in Ohio,  told the Dayton Daily News Thursday that a grand jury in Atlanta, where the SCLC is headquartered, was looking into his management of the organization's funds. Another SCLC board member confirmed to the Dayton Daily News that he had received a subpoena.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Office did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. But Howard has confirmed previously that his white collar crime unit was looking into allegations that Trammell of Dayton and the former national treasurer, Spiver Gordon of Eutaw, Ala., misappropriated at least $569,000.

Fulton's grand juries routinely meet on Tuesdays and Fridays of each week.

The Fulton inquiry is just one on several investigations that reach into three states – Alabama where Gordon is based, Ohio where Trammell operates and Georgia . The FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office are investigating the same allegations as the Fulton DA’s office.

Just two weeks ago, federal agents searched the Dayton SCLC office and the homes of Trammell and his daughter, taking away computers, boxes and bins. Then a week later, the FBI and local law enforcement met with the organization’s general counsel, Dexter Wimbish, and two SCLC board members – former national President the Rev. Byron Clay and board member Art Rocker – to deliver SCLC records that are the basis for the various probes. The FBI and other participants confirmed the meeting.

The grand jury is asking for much of the same information that the federal agents want.

Trammell told the  Daily News Thursday he had heard that a Fulton County grand jury would be asked to look at his and Spiver's management of SCLC funds. Trammell declined to say anything more when asked for comment  as he entered a Dayton meeting of SCLC executive board members Thursday morning.

Another SCLC board member in Ohio, the Rev. Wilbert Shanklin, confirmed to the Daily News that he had received a subpoena.

On Jan. 14, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported Trammell and Spiver may have diverted SCLC funds for their own use on. That is when the criminal investigations were opened. Records obtained previously by the AJC show payments from SCLC funds to organizations only Trammell and Spiver control. They also made payments to themselves or to relatives.

Their control of the organization's money was evident in a letter Trammell wrote little more than a year ago to Clay, then interim CEO for the group. In a copy of the the letter obtained by the AJC, Trammell wrote that only Spiver could make bank deposits. The letter said all checks were to be stored in a safe until Spiver could come to the SCLC national office in Atlanta and personally make the deposits.