The board of directors behind Manhattan’s famous St Patrick’s Day parade has complained to the New York State Attorney General about the alleged misuse of its funds dating back to 2010. The sum is said to include $2,000 in personal spending by the parade’s former chairman John Dunleavy.
Claims made by the St Patrick’s Day Parade board include allegations that 14 out-of-town trips were taken over three years by Mr Dunleavy, another board member Mike Cassels and a third individual, who is not an employee of the company, costing the non-profit company $24,000. There were said to be unapproved and unconnected with the parade.
The board claims Mr Dunleavy charged “multiple purchases of ‘GRC Triverex,’ which is a male enhancement drug” to the parade’s American Express credit card and that sums of money involved - five charges of $42.94 each in 2012 and 2013 - were not reimbursed.
Details of the alleged financial improprieties - first reported by the New York-based Irish Voice newspaper - are contained in a letter sent from the parade’s executive secretary Hilary Beirne to Deborah McCarthy, assistant attorney general in the charities bureau, together with an audit report carried out by the parade’s accountants.
Mr Dunleavy's attorney Frank Young told The Irish Times his client would reimburse any personal expenses paid for with the parade credit card. Mr Dunleavy had asked for a copy of the audit report to see the allegations but had not received one, he said.
Deflect attention
Mr Young said the complaint about the personal expenses was an attempt by the parade’s new chairman, John Lahey - who replaced Mr Dunleavy in June - to deflect attention away from his decision to continue a $175,000 contract with NBC to broadcast the parade when another New York TV channel had offered to broadcast it for free.
“It is very frightening and disgusting that Lahey is taking these actions to turn the public eye away from this attempt to pad the account of NBC by unlawfully giving them the parade broadcast,” he said.
Mr Young said the travel expenses covered trips to Washington DC that were undertaken with the board’s knowledge and involved meetings with “military brass” who were participating in the parade.
The 253-year-old parade has been at the centre of a power struggle between Mr Dunleavy, 78, and Mr Lahey, who is president of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Mr Dunleavy heads the committee that organises the parade but Mr Lahey wants to create an executive committee appointed by the board to take over its duties.
Mr Lahey pushed the parade’s organisers to end the long-running controversy around the exclusion of gay groups, a move Mr Dunleavy opposed.
Manipulated
Mr Dunleavy has filed a lawsuit against Mr Lahey in the Bronx Superior Court, claiming Mr Lahey unseated him and manipulated the parade committee to continue with the NBC television contract.
Hilary Beirne, executive secretary of The St Patrick’s Day Parade Inc, alerted the New York State Attorney General’s charities bureau to the alleged misuse of the parade’s funds in the letter sent last Friday.
Mr Beirne said in his letter that the company asked its accountants O’Connor Davies in July to review expenses incurred on the parade’s corporate credit card over the last three fiscal years, 2013 to 2015.
The parade’s board claims that the audit uncovered “undocumented and questionable” expenses relating to purchases of drugs for men, golf outings in South Carolina, reimbursements for expenses already paid and hotel expenses totalling more than $20,000.
A subsequent internal analysis of expenditures dating back to 2010 has uncovered an additional $10,000 in “questionable charges” by Mr Dunleavy, Mr Beirne said in the letter to the attorney general.
Mr Cassels had reimbursed $1,700 to the parade after being contacted in September, he said, but that Mr Dunleavy had “ignored” a letter from the parade about the alleged financial improprieties.
