The Fulton County District Attorney's Office has determined there is no proof that two former members of the Southern Christian Leadership Board of Directors stole about $560,000 in SCLC funds and has closed the investigation without bringing criminal charges against them.
A draft of the report capped an 18-month-long investigation. The two men at the center of the probe -- former SCLC Chairman Raleigh Trammell of Dayton, Ohio, and ex-SCLC Treasurer Spiver Gordon of Eutaw, Ala., and their supporters have urged officials to make it public.
"Well, I knew we had not done anything wrong," said Trammell. "Leading a civil rights organization is a very difficult task. Most people know there are no funds available to misuse because it takes all the funds you can manage to run the organization. I just thank the district attorney's office for their investigation into the matter. People wanted to destroy our names, our families and our integrity. We just have to pray for them."
Gordon said he was also pleased about the report's findings. After decades of being a member of the Atlanta-based civil rights organization, which was co-founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gordon said he was “terribly hurt and disappointed that the people I worked for all those years have been engaged in such negative and untruthful statements concerning me and Rev. Trammell. All we’ve done all of our lives is to try to help the least among us through our civil rights activity.”
In a letter to Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, the attorney for six former board members wrote that it appeared that "a politically-motivated agenda" was the reason he had put off releasing his findings for six months.
Howard began his investigation in February 2010 after the SCLC's general counsel asked him to investigate expenditures of more than $569,000 that some considered theft.
"We simply want your office to release your aforementioned findings, which you have had for many months now, and allow us to move on with our lives and ministries," according to the letter written by former Fulton Judge Thelma Wyatt Moore, attorney for the former board members.. "Mr. District Attorney, with all due respect, to withhold this information any longer is simply unjust."
There was no response to calls and emails sent by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday to Howard's office seeking comment.
The report said there was "insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges against" Gordon and Trammell but the DA recommended in the report that the SCLC make policy changes that make clear the responsibilities of staff and board members and would prevent the theft of SCLC funds.
"The Fulton County district attorney’s investigation concludes a fractious and unseemly chapter in our storied history," SCLC President Isaac Newton Farris Jr. said in a statement. "Thankfully that door is closed as we move aggressively forward."
The SCLC controversy started quietly in the summer of 2009 when questions were raised about spending. While there was nothing to support claims that the two men may have taken more than $1 million, eventually there were concerns that Trammell and Gordon had been diverting SCLC funds to themselves and to relatives.
It became a public dispute when some tried to remove Trammell and Gordon from the board, which split into two factions with each claiming to the legitimate governing body.
There were months of public fighting over the leadership of the organization that had to be resolved by a judge, who ruled that the group that opposed Trammell and Gordon was in charge. Farris was not a part of the leadership dispute and was elected after it was settled.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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