(LifeSiteNews) — A leader in the Marxist, anti-family Black Lives Matter movement is facing dozens of federal criminal charges.
“A federal grand jury indicted the leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Oklahoma City over allegations that millions of dollars in grant funds were improperly spent on international trips, groceries and personal real estate,” the Associated Press (AP) reported Thursday.
“Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, 52, was indicted earlier this month on 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering,” the AP reported.
Dickerson reportedly took money raised through the Oklahoma BLM organization and used it for her own personal benefit.
The group raised millions of dollars since 2020 on the back of controversy over the killing of George Floyd, supposedly to use to bail accused criminals out of prison.
Instead, “Dickerson embezzled at least $3.15 million into her personal accounts and then used the money to pay for trips to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, (and) retail shopping,” prosecutors allege. She also spent “at least $50,000 in food and grocery deliveries for herself and her children, a personal vehicle, and six properties in Oklahoma City deeded to her or to a company she controlled.”
She is not the only BLM leader to face accusations of using the movement for her own gain (despite the Marxist roots of Black Lives Matter). The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation also took advantage of donor largesse several years ago.
The organization, one of several nonprofits using the BLM name, “bought a $6 million home with donation funds,” according to previously reporting by the Columbia University journalism School and National Public Radio (NPR).
Journalism professor and reporter Sean Campbell said the nonprofit “justified the purchase as a space where Black creatives could come and create their art and influence things for the movement.”
“They also, in a memo that I obtained later, wanted to use the home as a safe house when people were feeling threatened or receiving death threats, other things,” Campbell told NPR in 2022.
Leader Patrisse Cullors “acknowledged she had used the BLM property twice for personal purposes,” the AP reported. She has defended the purchase, saying he group grew too quickly and made mistakes.
“We really wanted to make sure that the global network foundation had an asset that wasn’t just financial resources,” Cullors previously said.
The revelations that BLM used money to buy fancy homes led conservative commentator Michael Knowles to create a backronym for the group. BLM stands for “Buy Large Mansions,” Knowles has quipped.
