International- A Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation executive siphoned $10 million for personal use, a lawsuit claims.
- Shalomyah Bowers became a "turned usurper" after being tasked with collecting donations for BLM, the lawsuit says.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation on Friday was sued by Black Lives Matter Grassroots, which accused a foundation executive of stealing $10 million worth of donations from the organization.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, says BLM Global Network Foundation board member Shalomyah Bowers siphoned off the money into his own "personal piggy bank."
The complaint characterizes Bowers as a "rouge administrator, a middleman, turned usurper" after having been entrusted to collect donations on behalf of the BLM movement.
Bowers' actions have forced the foundation to undergo "multiple investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and various state attorneys general, blazing a path of irreparable harm to BLM in less than eighteen months, " the lawsuit reads.
"When more than 300 movement leaders, as well as BLM Founders, insisted that he resign from GNF," the complaint says, "he continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties."
The Global Network Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing BLM ideology, which was officially founded in 2013 after three organizers came together to create a Black-centered political movement. And Black Lives Matter Grassroots is an organization affiliated with the foundation that represents all BLM chapters nationwide.
Last week at a press conference, BLM Grassroots co-director Melina Abdullah said Bowers' actions stripped the Global Network Foundation of its power and have defamed its mission.
"Global Network Foundation has been taken away from the people who built it," she said. "Global Network Foundation is now led by a highly paid consultant who paid himself upwards of $2 million in a single year."
Bowers, according to the complaint, "managed to steal control of" the Global Network Foundation and became its sole board member and officer. He made more than $2.1 million from the Global Network Foundation within the span of less than eight months, the lawsuit says.
Bowers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The legal battle is the latest financial controversy within the BLM organization.
Earlier this year, a court filing said that Patrisse Cullors, once the executive director the Global Network Foundation, sent her brother $840,000 from funds received through donations to the movement.
Cullors had given her brother Paul money earmarked for "professional security services," Insider's Matthew Loh reported.
Paul, according to one artist description from a collective co-founded by Cullors, is a graffiti artist. He was also BLM's head of security, according to a New York Magazine article from April.