Posts Tagged ‘Alpha Kappa Alpha’

For those outside of Chicago, the Stroger name is probably an

unfamiliar name.  For those inside the Windy City…his/their (John and son Todd are  often one degree of separation from major corruption.

Coincidence?

From the Chicago Sun-Times in 2003 (Reprint of story HERE.)

Until September, Stroger had one of his top 8th Ward precinct captains, Bill Granberry, as Forest Preserves maintenance director for $90,000 a year. The Sun-Times reported that the district kept a fleet of five special outhouses that came out just once a year for Stroger’s annual picnic — at a time when other commissioners were clamoring for cleaner outhouses. Granberry resigned. Stroger said he never knew about the outhouse arrangement.

To replace Granberry, Stroger chose a member of his ward organization, LeRoy Taylor, controversial with some co-workers because he was promoted to regional superintendent when longer-serving workers were laid off. Taylor, a retired deputy commissioner for the Chicago Water Department, has donated $2,145 to Stroger, the 8th Ward organization and Stroger’s son’s campaigns since 2001. Taylor also was given a coveted Forest Preserve home in Beverly.

Bylina said he and Stroger talked about Taylor replacing Granberry. Bylina insisted the appointment be on an “acting” basis until Taylor demonstrates he can handle the position.

“I think he’s got the experience, the exposure, the knowledge of the preserves,” Bylina said. Whether he gets the permanent job remains to be seen, he said.

“Oh, he’ll get the permanent position,” one mid-level Forest Preserve official said. “Stroger won’t let that go to anyone but an 8th-Warder.”

In 2001, another top 8th-Warder, Mezell Williams, resigned as the Forest Preserves’ $99,000-a-year chief financial officer on the eve of a hearing where he was to explain how the district amassed a nearly $20 million deficit. The district raided land acquisition and maintenance funds for day-to-day operations. Stroger said the district had little choice because tax caps limited its ability to raise taxes or float bonds.

In a step many board members praised, Stroger replaced Williams with Barbara McKinzie, an accountant with a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern University.

(Another story had it this way…)

Readers…this is called, “connecting the dots.”

Well, it seems now another Stroger “associate/employee” is in serious trouble.  Recently ANOTHER Stroger aide, Carla Oglesby…Stroger’s deputy chief of staff was ARRESTED and charged with stealing more than $300,000 from taxpayers in a scheme to award sham contracts, including some to firms she owned but for which she did no work.

Carla Oglesby, 41, Stroger’s deputy chief of staff, was ordered held on $250,000 bail Tuesday after she was charged with three felonies: theft of government property and money laundering, both of over $100,000, and official misconduct. She faces up to 30 years in prison in connection with the allegations, some of which were first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times in March.

Full story HERE.

__________

Subsequent to the original allegations against McKinzie, Cook County

Commissioner Liz Gorman alerted the aforementioned Stroger that an investigation and audit should be conducted, relative to McKinzie’s previous employment.

A former sorority staffer on Tuesday said she was fired after alerting the Illinois attorney general’s office to alleged financial abuses at the group’s Chicago headquarters. “In light of these allegations, I am very concerned of the possible misuse of funds during her tenure as chief financial officer at the Forest Preserve District,” Ms. Gorman stated yesterday in a letter to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.

Ms. McKinzie was the district’s Chief Financial Officer from 2001-2004 and also has served in financial management positions at the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, Neighborhood Housing Services Inc. and the Chicago Housing Authority.

When she was County Board President, Bobbie Steele, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, signed a $12,000 consultant contract with Ms. McKinzie to help draft a budget and provide other financial advice. That budget never materialized.

Story HERE.

The latest is that Oglesby also has the unmitigated gall to file for unemployment after being fired/arrested for laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars to her OWN company.

Story HERE.

Let’s bring it all together now.  Oglesby, besides paying her own dummy companies (not registered with the state) also is accused of not doing any work for the $24,995 contracts she awarded “herself.”  Sound familiar?

Stroger accepted her resignation today as deputy chief of staff. She had been the spokeswoman for Stroger’s failed Democratic primary re-election campaign. Stroger put her on the county payroll after his loss.

Prosecutors say an investigation into more than a dozen no-bid contracts awarded by Oglesby found that little or no legitimate work was performed by any of the companies, including two controlled by her. (Click HERE for details of the charges.)

The loss to the county from the contracts exceeds $300,000, prosecutors said during the bond hearing for Oglesby, 41, who is charged with theft of government property, money laundering and official misconduct. (Get details of the allegations against Oglesby here)

One of Oglesby’s companies, CGC Communications, was awarded a $24,975 contract to inform county residents of federal grant money available to those affected by heavy flooding in 2008.

The contract was paid up-front, and CGC later tried to justify the contract by claiming credit for outreach efforts spearheaded by a member of Stroger’s press office.

In a second contract highlighted by prosecutors, a county official expressed concern to Oglesby and “Public Official C” — identified as a Stroger media representative — about a contract he was asked to authorize.

The county official agreed to sign after Public Official C pressured him, and the money was traced to Arrei, a company controlled by Oglesby, prosecutors said.

In all, Oglesby awarded or approved payments for more than a dozen no-bid contracts. In at least two instances, contractors returned checks to the county because they hadn’t performed any work, prosecutors said.

Story HERE.

Stroger, McKinzie, fraud, arrests and/or investigations over contracts to cronies for work never done.

Coincidence?

Fraud usually never is…

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and www.eurweb.com. It is meant to inform, infuse and incite meaningful discourse…as well as entertain. For more Mo’Kelly, http://mrmokelly.com. Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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Spies for The Mo’Kelly Report have been working overtime this week.  It seems that Barbara McKinzie, almost simultaneous to the forensic audit of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority retained ANOTHER legal team, to personally represent her and “protect” her image.

(Whatever is left of it.)

In another Mo’Kelly Report exclusive, McKinzie’s “new” legal team sent a threatening letter to Carol Ray, one of the original 8 plaintiffs, warning her (among other things) of the following:

We trust that you will not partake or initiate any conduct that would tend to damage the
reputation or shed a false light unto Ms. McKinzie. Nonetheless, be advised that the publication
or distribution of any untrue or even misleading statements regarding Ms. McKinzie, whether or
not derived from the aforementioned documents, would necessitate the need to take legal action.

Consider this letter notice that should Ms. McKinzie hear or become aware of any misleading and/or tortious statements that are derived from you, Ms. McKinzie and our firm will not hesitate to take appropriate legal action.”

And no…Mr. Mo’Kelly has never received any such communication…EVER.

Just sayin’.

I guess that means that EVERYTHING Mo’Kelly’s said about Barbara A. McKinzie is neither “misleading” nor “tortious.” In other words, EVERYTHING Mo’Kelly’s posted here is factual and actual.

But Mo’Kelly digresses…

To the best of Mo’Kelly’s knowledge, there has been no further threatening letters since to Ms. Ray. Just know, this legal team is likely being funded with her previous “salary” from the sorority. Hey, McKinzie has alleged all along she was an “employee” of the organization, so know that AKA’s money is still footing the bill.

Check out the letter HERE.

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and www.eurweb.com. It is meant to inform, infuse and incite meaningful discourse…as well as entertain. For more Mo’Kelly, http://mrmokelly.com. Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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In The Mo’Kelly Report we’ve had extensive discussions on the role and reality of Black Greek Letter Organizations.  From Zeta Phi Beta, to Alpha Kappa Alpha sororities to even Phi Beta Sigma and  Omega Psi Phi fraternities have all served as entry points into the discussion.

In other words, The Mo’Kelly Report hasn’t played any favorites.

Today is Sigma Gama Rho sorority’s turn. Four members of  the San Jose State University chapter of the sorority have been arrested and the national body is being sued for hazing.

(Mind you, this is NOT the same case as the 6 Rutgers members who were arrested earlier this year.  This is ANOTHER case in which members have been jailed and the body sued.  Hence the GANGSTA nickname.  Sigma Gangsta Rho…you’ve earned the moniker.  Refresher HERE.)

However, Howard contends, that the group’s pledge process was far from sisterly. According to her complaint, she and fellow pledges were punched, slapped, kicked, slammed into walls, struck with a wooden spoon and a cane, and had books and coins thrown at them during a series of 16 nighttime initiation sessions. Howard recalled one evening when a sorority sister told her to close her eyes. She was then struck on the buttocks with what she later learned was a kitchen pot. The pledges were also frequently struck with a wooden paddle, Howard said, blows that left her with welts on her buttocks.

Howard reported that pledges were repeatedly warned not to talk with friends and family about the initiation process, since “snitches get stitches.” They were also told that if they failed to participate in certain pledge activities, they would be “jumped out,” a gang term for a beating conducted by all members of the group.

Howard’s complaint names as defendants San Jose State University, Sigma Gamma Rho, and various sorority members, including a quartet of women who, court records show, pleaded no contest earlier this year to misdemeanor hazing charges. The defendants–Princess Odom; Monique Hughes; Joslyn Beard; and Nicole Remble–were each sentenced to 90 days in jail, directed to serve two years of court probation, and barred from involvement with any sorority.

FULL STORY HERE.

And can Mo’Kelly say it again…”TOLD YOU SO!”  Let’s quote Mo’Kelly…

The argument can be made that as we collectively move further and further away from the principles of brotherhood and sisterhood and closer to big business, these are the inevitabilities.  The deficiencies in our brotherhood and sisterhood quotients have borne themselves out from the top down.

On the undergraduate level you hear more and more how it becomes harder for the lay person to distinguish the fraternities from the gangs, for often times the behavior is just that, indistinguishable. Having nothing to do with our “hand signs,” the stepshow altercations between organizations have increasingly become the rule, not the exception.

Maybe the caliber of membership has decreased relative to the sheer numbers of African-Americans in college, which have also dropped.  Maybe the talent pool is just too shallow or maybe…just maybe, our organizations have become too shallow in and of themselves.

-  Mo’Kelly 7.15.09

Mo’Kelly 7.15.09

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and www.eurweb.com. It is meant to inform, infuse and incite meaningful discourse…as well as entertain. For more Mo’Kelly, http://mrmokelly.com. Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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So the closet and the skeletons in it will be open for former Supreme Basileus Julia Brogdon Purnell on August 26 and for some days following it.  Forensic accountants will have FULL access to the AKA books and records going back to 2006.

That means check registers, tax records, you name it.  Depending on what’s “missing” and the revealed skeletons given what is “found” will decide how long the investigation will continue beyond the beginning of next week.  To read the court order, follow the link HERE.

Another great victory for attorney Ruth Major and the women of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

The Mo’Kelly Report is an entertainment journal with a political slant; published at The Huffington Post and www.eurweb.com. It is meant to inform, infuse and incite meaningful discourse…as well as entertain. For more Mo’Kelly, http://mrmokelly.com. Mr. Mo’Kelly can be reached at mrmokelly@gmail.com.

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Attorney Ruth Major, whose name you might recognize from her work in conjunction with the Alpha Kappa Alpha financial malfeasance is clearly a rising star on the legal scene. Congratulations are in order for Ms. Major.  Also, this is indicative of the changing role of media for attorneys.  Heretofore it was frowned upon to use the media and now it has become an effective tool in advancing arguments, issues and ultimately attorneys.

RELATED:

Ruth Major and AKA Wrongful termination client Kenitra Shackelford

Mo’Kelly’s Previous Interview with Major

Mo’Kelly Interviews Ruth Major re: Alpha Kappa Alpha

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Well not really…or kinda sorta.  Without divulging some sensitive information, it seems that The Mo’Kelly Report and Mr. Mo’Kelly were somehow “connected” or “part of” or “mentioned” during today’s proceedings regarding scheduling a proper review of the financial records of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.  Mo’Kelly can’t mention any specifics…or would rather not, to be truthful.  This posting is for those out there wondering if Mo’Kelly has been apprised of the latest.

Yes he has been.  When appropriate, more commentary later.

But Mo’Kelly can say…he obviously matters and it was reaffirmed today. (For all 8 of you out there who hadn’t figured it out yet.)

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Check out this letter to the sorority for the Boule…you will find no finer example of African-American womanhood than Barbara A. McKinzie.  This now ends the dripping sarcasm.  Have fun in the comment section.

Check it out HERE.

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Ruth Major

Julia Brogdon Purnell’s counsel, Ruth Major checks in with the latest in her attempts to review the records of the sorority can be found below.

Click HERE

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