By Dustin Brown
A Long Island City man was arrested Monday after allegedly pocketing more than $400,000 in donations he collected over two years to help the families of slain police officers, federal prosecutors said.
Justin White had founded the Police Survivors’ Fund at 45-28 21st St. in Long Island City to “aid financially the surviving members of a family where the parent police officer had been killed,” according to the Charities Registration Statement he had filed with the state two years ago.
But FBI agents arrested him Monday on charges he had defrauded scores of businesses and individuals who had sent the charity money, only the smallest fraction of which was actually given to fallen officers’ families, said U.S. Attorney James Comey for the Southern District in Manhattan.
“Even since Sept. 11, there are still some who would dishonor themselves and their country by exploiting the generosity of caring people seeking to assist those who have suffered previous losses,” Comey said in a statement.
White was charged with two counts of mail fraud, Comey said, and he was released on $250,000 bond after appearing in Manhattan federal court Monday, according to published reports. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Of the $441,075 he had collected for the charity since January 2000, White allegedly wrote only six checks to family members of slain police officers totaling about $14,500 — slightly more than 3 percent of his total donations.
Yet he still managed to write and cash 56 checks for himself, personally drawing $286,805 from the charity’s coffers, Comey alleged.
The funds were maintained in an account that White had set up under the charity’s name with Fleet Bank in October 1999.
In the months after Sept. 11 he netted three times his usual profits, pulling in $178,660 by exploiting the tragedy in his telephone solicitations, Comey said.
Yet White only sent one $10,000 check to the family of an officer killed in the World Trade Center, the U.S. attorney said, even though 23 died Sept. 11.
White allegedly provided scripts to a team of telemarketers he employed between October 1999 and February 2002 that encouraged potential donors to “go all out for the widows and children,” the complaint said. While the minimum donation was set at $99, one-year “memberships” went for $395 and lifetime memberships cost $1,000, it said.
The scripts exploited the destruction of the World Trade Center by claiming people were “donating $911 to commemorate the day of terror,” according to the complaint. Customers who balked at the figure were told to “save face in the community with $50,” it said.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
