The former executive director of a Brooklyn nonprofit dedicated to helping Black transgender people stole nearly $100,000 from the group and spent it on Mercedes-Benz payments, a home renovation and other personal expenses, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The former official, Dominique Morgan, siphoned money from the organization, the Okra Project, that she said would be used to pay bail for indigent defendants, prosecutors said.
Ms. Morgan, herself a Black trans woman, was charged in an indictment with one count of second-degree grand larceny and 23 counts of first-degree falsifying business records.
“The theft of nonprofit funds deprives communities of critical resources, erodes public trust and cheats donors who give in good faith,” Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in announcing the charges.
Ms. Morgan, a 42-year-old Omaha native who now lives in Atlanta, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. She was released without bail and is scheduled to return to court in December. She faces five to 15 years in prison if convicted on the grand larceny count. Her lawyer did not respond to a call seeking comment.
An email seeking comment from the Okra Project, which describes itself on its website as a mutual aid group focused on the “nourishment and sustenance” of Black transgender people across the United States, was not returned.
It is unclear when Ms. Morgan became the group’s executive director, but she was earning a salary of more than $200,000 in the role by 2022, according to a news release from Mr. Gonzalez’s office.
Ms. Morgan’s total compensation in 2022 was $328,000, according to an Okra Project tax filing. The filing notes that she left the position as of Aug. 3 that year, when she was among the grand marshals of the NYC Pride March.
While she was executive director, the news release says, Ms. Morgan announced that in addition to its core mission of helping clients meet their food, housing, transportation and mental health needs, the group would begin bailing indigent people out of jail.
She did not take any steps to begin such an initiative, the release says. Instead, according to the indictment and release, she moved $99,000 into her personal account during a two-week period in July 2022. She then spent the money on meals, clothes, the car payments and the renovation project by California Closets, which cost $19,000, prosecutors said.
When Okra Project officials asked for proof of the bail payments, prosecutors said, Ms. Morgan produced receipts related to 23 people who had supposedly been arrested in Fulton County, Ga., where Atlanta is, and Douglas County, Neb., where Omaha is. An audit by the organization found that the arrests had not occurred, the release says.
Ms. Morgan wrote on LinkedIn in August 2022 that the decision that she would leave the Okra Project had been “amicable.”
“Being an executive director is one of the most amazing” experiences a person could have, she wrote, “and one of the most daunting at the same time.”
In December 2022, she was hired as the director of the Fund for Trans Generations at Borealis Philanthropy. The organization did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Last summer, a section of the Omaha street where Ms. Morgan grew up was renamed Dominique Morgan Street after a unanimous vote by the City Council, The Omaha World-Herald and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“For every queer and trans person who walks down Dominique Morgan Street,” she told The Journal-Constitution at the time, “they will know that no matter where their story began, they will get to determine where their story ends.”
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