An
email sent in 2007 by an official at an Illinois-based
non-profit currently under a state investigation
suggests Barack Obama, then a U.S. senator, attempted
to help secure $10 million for the embattled
organization...White House media contacts did not
respond to inquiries from the Telegraph Herald.
6/26/13:
Illinois senator seeks answers on possible $9
million misappropriation -- Lawmaker says the state
attorney general's office is not responding to his
requests for updates on the investigation into a
nonprofit's activities by Erin Murphy, Dubuque
Telegraph Herald
With nearly $9 million of taxpayer money
still unaccounted for four years later, Illinois
Sen. Tim Bivins continues to press the state's
attorney general for updates on the investigation
into a defunct and discredited nonprofit
organization.
He isn't getting many answers.
Bivins, a Republican in the Illinois Senate who
represents northwest Illinois, including Jo Daviess
County, has been pressing the office of state
Attorney General Lisa Madigan for information on its
investigation into the Illinois-based Save a Life
Foundation, a nonprofit that received nearly $9
million in state and federal funding for a program
whose services, it appears, were never rendered.
Bivins also has inquired about a $25,000 grant that
the attorney general's office awarded to Save a
Life, also for a program that apparently was never
executed.
Since its establishment in 1993, the foundation
pledged to teach school children first aid and
emergency response practices. Despite receiving
nearly $9 million to fund the program, however, very
few records of students being taught have been
found.
...Bivins became involved in the Save a Life saga in
2011, when Gov. Pat Quinn nominated Gery Chico to be
chair of the state education board. Bivins learned
Chico had possible ties to the foundation.
So, as his party's spokesperson for the Executive
Appointments Committee, which reviews all
gubernatorial appointments to state boards and
commissions, Bivins blocked Chico's nomination.
...Bivins' last letter to the attorney general's
office asks about a $25,000 grant it awarded Save a
Life in fiscal year 2003. The grant was intended to
fund the teaching of first aid to students in eight
school districts, but when asked about the program
none of the districts could recall any association
with Save a Life or its program.
"Does Attorney General Madigan intend to refer the
$25,000 grant your office awarded to SALF to her
ongoing investigation of SALF?" Bivins asked in his
letter.
Bivins said he has received no response to that
letter.
...The Illinois attorney general's office did not
respond to multiple inquiries from the Telegraph
Herald.
6/27/13:
Email exchange: Obama tried to steer $10 million to
Chicago nonprofit under investigation by
Patrick Howley, The Daily Caller
1/15/14: Courthouse
News Service article by Jack Bouboushian about
oral arguments heard the previous day by the IL
Supreme Court re: the State's appeal of the
dismissal by a Chicago judge of charges brought
against Annabel Melongo under the IL Eavesdropping
Act.
The (IL
Supreme Court) is considering the
constitutionality of the law after a woman
prosecuted under it was incarcerated for over 18
months before her trial ended with a hung jury.
Annabel
Melongo was once an employee of the Save-A-Life
Foundation, an Illinois charity that has been
accused of dishonesty or financial impropriety.
After secretly recording her phone conversations
with a Cook County court reporter and posting
those tapes on a personal website, she was
arrested in 2010 for violating the Illinois
Eavesdropping Act, a law that requires a person
to obtain the consent of anyone whose
conversation he records.
3/27/14:
Supreme Court strikes down
recording law by Patrick Yeagle,
Illinois Times:
Originally
from the Republic of Cameroon in Africa,
defendant Annabel Melongo was accused in 2006 of
computer tampering after files from a supposed
charity for which she worked disappeared from
one of the organization’s computers. The
charity, the Save-A-Life Foundation, has since
disbanded and been accused of pocketing state
grant money without performing any services, and
its once influential founder Carol Spizzirri has
reportedly moved to California and avoided
answering questions by the Illinois Attorney
General’s office.
7/8/14: New
Trial Could Highlight Obama Allies’ Links to
Scandalous Chicago Nonprofit by Fred Lucas,
The Blaze:
A
long-delayed computer tampering trial could
dredge up the connections two of President
Barack Obama’s top political allies have to a
now-defunct Chicago nonprofit investigated for
potential fraud.
Senate
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and
Education Secretary Arne Duncan were once huge
proponents of the Save-a-Life Foundation,
which taught first aid skills to
schoolchildren.
Save-A-Life
received $9 million in state and federal
grants from its founding in 1993 to when it
folded in 2009, amid scrutiny over how the
organization was spending its money. Political
support evaporated from Duncan, Durbin and
several other politicians from both parties
who had previously secured or advocated for
the grants and publicly praised Save-a-Life
and its founder, Carol Spizzirri.
8/7/14:
Missing
the money -- Computer tampering case resolved, but
questions remain about public grants by
Patrick Yeagle, Illinois Times:
Computer tampering charges have been
dropped against a defendant in a bizarre court case
involving supposed computer hacking at a defunct
Illinois nonprofit. Still, millions of dollars in
state and federal grants are missing, and the
nonprofit’s director has yet to account for the
money.
Annabel
Melongo of Chicago was found not guilty of computer
tampering in a directed finding on July 29 in Cook
County Circuit Court. Her case is part of a complex
and sometimes murky saga surrounding an allegedly
fraudulent charity with an office in Springfield and
ties to numerous public officials.
...Melongo’s case contained no actual evidence tying
her to the destruction of the records, according to
her attorney, Jennifer Bonjean of New York. The only
evidence was (Carol) Spizziri’s accusation, Bonjean
says.
“(Spizzirri) offered no evidence whatsoever,”
Bonjean said. “Indeed she lied on the stand...."
1/29/15:
You
Paid for It: Portrait of a con by Matt Porter,
WCIA-TV (Springfield, IL CBS affiliate):
Illinois Senator Martin Sandoval
(D-Cicero) was listed as a board member and
secretary in the early 2000's for the program.
Sandoval said Save a Life improperly listed him as
an active board member. He said he only attended two
meetings before deciding to walk away. He said the
foundation had invited him to the board because he
had his own personal tragedy. But Sandoval said he
never felt comfortable with the organization.
“I felt they
just wanted to use me as window dressing,” Sandoval
said.
Sandoval
wasn't alone. Seven years of annual reports for Save
a Life featured almost 200 pictures of elected
officials and professionals. Bivins said his
colleagues are embarrassed.
"People I've
talked to about it, or attempted to talk to, just
don't want to talk about it,” he said.
People like
Illinois House Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang
(D-Skokie), who authored a resolution praising the
organization and Spizzirri in 2003. He declined
repeated requests for comment. State Representative
Elgie Sims, Jr. (D) lobbied for Save a Life before
being elected to the General Assembly. He declined
an on-camera interview, but said Spizzirri ran the
organization with impunity.
“I believed
the fact sheets Spizzirri gave me,” Sims said.
Another
former lobbyist, Bennett Krause, had a similar
opinion. He said he only did what Spizzirri told him
to do. After watching the first investigative report
in 2006, Krause said he couldn’t believe it.
“I felt
duped,” Krause said.
Former
Palatine mayor, Rita Mullins, was with Save a Life,
almost from day one. She denies trying to deceive
anyone. She said the organization kept records of
its training.
When asked
to present some, Mullins said “I don't know where
they are now.”
7/15/15: 2 Investigates: CDC gives
millions of tax dollars to shady nonprofit by
Jodie Fleisher, WSB-TV (ABC Atlanta)
The CDC is refusing to answer Channel 2
Action News' questions about a high-ranking employee
who served on the board of a now-defunct nonprofit
that's been the subject of a series of scandals.
The
Save A Life Foundation (SALF) also happened to
receive more than $3 million in CDC funding, much of
it while that same employee was serving as the
nonprofit's treasurer.
"Save A
Life was a fraud, it can't be described as anything
but a total fraud," said attorney Jennifer Bonjean,
who represents a whistleblower who used to work
there.
PMH: Here’s one of the biggest
problems. In funding applications that pulled in
millions of dollars, SALF claimed their trainers
provided in-school first aid classes to hundreds of
thousands of students in the Chicago Public Schools
(CPS). A program of that scope would have produced
tens of thousands of pages of documents. But in
response to a federal court subpoena and FOIA
requests, CPS failed to produce a single training
record: no correspondence, no scheduling, no
employee records, no evaluations, just a handful of
SALF press releases hyping their relationship with
then-Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan.
SALF’s
training was supposed to be free to the schools, so
why did Duncan personally arrange a $174,000
contract with Spizzirri to train thousands of
students? Further, CPS wrote me that they have no
records for the program except the contract and paid
invoices to SALF, and that Duncan was entirely
responsible. But when I and others have tried to get
answers from Duncan – who was close to SALF for
years and reportedly
called Spizzirri “one of my heroes” – he won’t
answer. Why not?
In
2011, CPS Inspector General James Sullivan wrote me
that there’s no statute of limitations on vendor
fraud, so I
submitted a thoroughly-documented investigation
request asking him to look into what happened
to the money CPS paid SALF including the contact
Duncan arranged with Spizzirri. Despite multiple
follow-ups, I’ve never received a reply, so
presumably Sullivan wants to bury the mess.
6/30/20:
Maricopa
County attorney candidate accused of misconduct in
decade-old case by
Lauren Castle, Arizona Republic
A decade-old civil
lawsuit out of Illinois is being used to
attack the credibility of Maricopa County
attorney candidate Julie Gunnigle.
...In 2013, Melongo filed a civil lawsuit in
federal court against Gunnigle and other
prosecutors, the Cook County State's Attorney's
Office, law enforcement, court reporters, a
forensic science expert, the state's assistant
attorney general and the attorney general.
She accused
officials of conspiracy, unreasonable seizure,
false arrest and imprisonment, malicious
prosecution, emotional distress, consumer fraud
and deceptive business practices, and breach of
fiduciary duty. The lawsuit also accused officials
of violating her rights of free speech, equal
protection, freedom of press and petition.
The lawsuit was
dismissed last year after a settlement was
reached.