NY AG James seeks lifetime ban of ex-NRA head Wayne LaPierre, monitor for gun-rights organization
Attorney General Letitia James is asking for a court-appointed monitor to oversee the NRA and its charitable assets — as its former head faces the possibility of a lifetime ban.
James and disgraced former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre were back in a Manhatt𓃲an courtroom Monday as the state began arguments in the second phase of a trial that could ban the former leader from ever being associated with the gun gro🤡up.
The first phase of the trial dealt the heaviest blow to Lapie🦋💧rre — as he was ordered to pay back roughly $4.4 million to the group after his illicit, lavish spending of millions of charita﷽ble donations — but the second phase is taking aim at the NRA itself.
NRA lawyers and a current board member argue banning Lapie🌼rre is unconstitutional and say the nonprofit is ditching its charitable🔴 status.
“We’re not a charity,” said board ℱmember and former NRA p🐻resident Charles Cotton during testimony on Monday morning.
Cotton had signed papers to officially change that status last April, just months after a jury found the group failed to properly administer charitable funds, and broke state whistleblower laws — in addition to the millions stolen by LaPierre.
While Cotton told a lawyer from the AG’s office that he wasn’t sure if it would affect the appointment of a monitor — or any future oversight from the AG’s office — the comment would appear to bolster the state’s argument that the venerated gun’s rights group has been unrepentant since a jury ruled in favor of the state’s case back in February.
The NRA has been accused of trying to duck James’ legal actions in the past by filing for bankruptcy and re-incorporating in Texas. LaPierre himself resigned from the NRA just before the trial ൲begaꦡn in January.
Additionally, Cotton said the board had instituted new measures to audit and impose new whistleblower protections, but Shiffman laid out examples of the group’s resistan♈t to change.
Internal emails and messages displayed while Cotton was under questioning by Assistant Attorney General Steve Shiffman showed how Cotton and other board members tried to spin the jury’s verdict as a win for the NRA — and a loss for James.
That verdict, which found that LaPierre, 74, had misspent $5.4 million of NRA money on — including private plane and helicopter trips to the Bahamas and to NASCAR races, and millions in phony vendor invoices — also found that the NRA had failed to properly administer its donations.
The💧 jury ordered LaPierre to repay roughly $4.4 million back to the NRA.
Former NRA general counsel and fellow defendant in the phase two trial, John Frazer, wrote in an email to the board afte🤪r the verdict that the ♐NRA, actually, was the real victim.
“The jury phase involved misconduct against the NRA,” ♚the email said.
Other internal communications submitted as evidenc🌳e revealed a bizarre strategy of claimin๊g that the gun group itself was not even a defendant in the jury trial.
Co♐tton, in an NRA press release sent after the trial, thanked the board’s audit committee for “years of corrective review,” which he described as “examined and found sound by a jury.
“Phase one was won, much to the chagrin of﷽ the Attorney General,” Cotton said in May at the NRA’s annual board meeting.
An NRA press release, presented as evidence by the attorney general’s office, states that the trial confirmed that the groups had been the victim of abuse by former vendors and bad insiders, though the statement💟 omitted any mention of LaPierre or the organization’s own verdict.
ಞ“Remember,” Cotton told members at the annual meeting in May, according to a transcript, “phase one is a jury trial. It’s against individual defendants, ꦡnot against the NRA.”
When asked by Shiffman if LaPierre was ever penalized at all for his misconduct after evidence of the former CEO’s lavish misspending was revealed,✃ Cotton demurred.
“Like cutting his salary? No sir,” Cotton said, and confirmed there was no public reprimand or suspension of his𓆉 position ♌by the NRA.
“We were keeping a lot closer eye on him,” 𒈔said Cotton, an NRA board member since 2001. “He knew a spotlight was on him.”
LaPierre’s resignation on the 🌠eve of the jury trial was a surprise until the night before, Cotton said. In a press release afterwards, Cotton referred to LaPierre as a “Towering figure.”
According to an internal review cond꧂ucted before the trial, the NRA has been bleeding cash and members, with both numbers plummeting from their peak in 2018.
The NRA’s total revenue in 2022 was only $277.7 million — nearly $140 million less than four years earlier.
In 2023, membership stood at 3.8 million, down from 5.2 million in 2018ඣ.
When asked by a reporter outside of the courtroom on Monday to comment on the gun industry in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, LaPierre said “I’m retired.”
