Filing Summary

The New York Attorney General (NYAG), who has sued the NRA for a variety of charities law violations, filed a motion to dismiss the bankruptcy “because the NRA’s conduct in filing this bankruptcy while claiming solvency and seeking to evade regulatory oversight is in bad faith” such that dismissal is required. (p.7).  If the court grants the motion, the bankruptcy process would end and the NRA would return to litigating its numerous disputes in courts throughout the country.  

This motion comes just days after Ackerman McQueen filed a similar motion that the bankruptcy be dismissed, and separately, NRA board member Phillip Journey asked the bankruptcy court to appoint an independent examiner to investigate the allegations of waste and fraud at the NRA.  

In the alternative, NYAG asks the court to appoint an independent trustee to run the NRA as the bankruptcy proceeds due to the “dishonesty, fraud, and gross mismanagement by the NRA’s current management….” (p.7). 

Key Points

• The filing discusses the “siphoning of tens of millions of dollars out of the NRA” by NRA executives, including CEO Wayne LaPierre, “for their own purposes while failing to disclose such payments on regulatory filings and blatantly violating the NRA’s reimbursement, procurement, and expense policies.” (para. 47)
• The NYAG details specific instances of the NRA incurring costs for private chartered jets for travel by Wayne LaPierre and his family. (para. 50). This includes the notation that “LaPierre and his family took NRA-funded private flights to and from the Bahamas […] The NRA paid over half a million dollars for each of these flights.”
• In what is a newly reported development, former NRA CFO Craig Spray – who just left the NRA – apparently testified that, to cut spending, he eliminated “all non mission critical travel.” But NRA records “establish that it continued to pay for private flights with no apparent business purpose.”  (para. 51).  Mr. Spray, according to the NYAG, “learned for the first time that LaPierre’s wife travels by private charter alone at the NRA expense” only “the night before” his testimony with the NYAG, when informed by NRA counsel. (para 51)
  • The NYAG also disclosed that “after the NYAG confronted the then-CFO with evidence relating to the falseness of the NRA’s previous [regulatory] filings…. The NRA was forced to admit that it did not follow its written policy regarding payment or reimbursement for expenses including tax indemnification and gross-up payments, housing allowance or residence for personal use, and health or social club dues or initiation fees.” (para 72)
• Between August 2014 to January 2020, the NRA paid Wayne LaPierre’s personal travel consultant more than $13.5 million. (para. 54)
• Between 2013 and 2017, Wayne LaPierre received more than $1.2 million in expense reimbursements from the NRA, including “over $65,000 just for Christmas gifts….” (para. 58) 
• Other questionable spending included in the filing: the NRA spent $800 for mosquito control treatments for “security purposes” at LaPierre’s home, among several others. (para. 59)
• The NYAG informed the court about the “consulting” contract former NRA Treasurer Wilson Phillips received from the NRA – some $30,0000 a month for five years “with no deliverables.” According to  the NYAG, the Chair of the NRA Audit Committee testified that if the contract was a related-party transaction and was put in front of his committee (which it was not), that “I can guarantee you my committee would not have approved that.” (para. 81)