Federal prosecutors laid out for the first time Monday the great lengths former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks went to creating a phantom world he used for soliciting charitable donations.
The money he said would be for his good works — fighting illiteracy, pushing for voter education and registration and addressing violence in the black community — instead went to pay for cable at his house, a membership on Match.com, his wife’s credit card bills and other regular living expenses.
Brooks has already pleaded guilty to tax evasion and no contest to five counts of wire or mail fraud. Brooks resigned from the Legislative seat he had held almost 3½ decades the day before he entered his plea in April.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg began hearing testimony regarding his sentence for soliciting corporate and union donations for a sham charity, Universal Humanities, or diverting donations to the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials to his personal bank account.
In total it was almost $1 million donated by Coca-Cola, Georgia Pacific, Georgia Power Co., Northside Hospital and the Teamsters Union over at least a 15-year time.
Lawyers for the one-time Atlanta Democrat representative are asking Totenberg to sentence Brooks, 70, to probation in light of the decades of work he has done for civil rights, starting when he was 15 and joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s team.
Prosecutors, however, are pushing for two years in prison.
"It's a disappointing day for us," federal prosecutor Kurt Erskine said at the beginning of a sentencing hearing that could take most of the week. "Tyrone Brooks has done much good in his life… Tyrone Brooks used his considerable influence and access. His record as a civil rights leader served him well… opened doors for him."
The investigation began four years ago, FBI agent Christie Parker testified, with a call from an official at Citizens Bank and Trust. The banker had noticed unusual deposits and transfers between the account for Universal Humanities to an account entitled Tyrone Brooks Headquarters.
“There was money flowing through those accounts that looked suspicious,” Parker said.
Notations on the memo lines on the checks would say the payments were for things like reimbursements for expenses but the amounts were always for round numbers like $3,000 or $8,000. Parker said that didn’t make sense. Checking those bank accounts led to a bogus GABEO account that Brooks had set up at Capital City Bank. For years, GABEO’s official bank account had been at BB&T in Macon.
According to testimony on Monday, Brooks created a website for Universal Humanities that named a board of directors who knew nothing of the organization as well as two people who are deceased and one who is bed-ridden. That web site is remains active and includes a request for donations, Parker said.
There were brochures and letters detailing the work Universal Humanities claimed to have done and expectations to take it’s work to address illiteracy to other states.
Brooks had produced articles of incorporation and had applied for tax-exempt status as a charity with the IRS that included representations of board approval.
Patricia Young testified that she had know Brooks since they were children.
But then she learned he had listed her husband, Billy, as treasurer for Universal Humanities and that he was working with Visions for Literacy even after he had died. She also was at one time listed at treasurer.
Neither she nor her husband had heard of either organization, Young said.
“It was very hurtful because Tyrone and I grew up together,” Young said. “I was proud of Tyrone. I was proud of the work he had done.”
About the Author
