On this Veterans Day, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says his office has reached settlements with an organization that at times called itself the National Vietnam Veterans Foundation, and also the American Veteran Support Foundation.
Schneiderman says the organization and its top executives began soliciting funds in New York State about 2008. By 2014 when the state started investigating, they were collecting nearly $9 million a year from small donors nationwide. But the attorney general says nearly all the money was used to pay off the fundraisers instead of helping veterans, and was further reduced by mismanagement.
Schneiderman says Foundation President John Thomas Burch Jr has paid a $100,000 penalty which will be directed to charities that actually help veterans. He’s also barred from involvement with charitable organizations and must cooperate with the state’s investigation of the NVVF.