The longtime head of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, 74, has been found liable following allegations that he used his employer’s funds on private jets and accepted expensive presents.
LaPierre has now been ordered to pay the powerful gun rights group $4.3 million in damages for his mismanagement and misspending of charitable funds.
During his jury trial, a New York court heard how LaPierre acted as the ‘King of the NRA,’ spending lavishly on himself, punishing dissent while showering allies with country club memberships and no-show contracts.
On Friday afternoon he was been found liable of setting himself up with a $17 million contract with the NRA if he were to exit the organization, and spending NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services and five-star travel.
Dubbed ‘Wayne’s World’, La Pierre was alleged to have allowed insiders to squander tens of millions of dollars on five-star hotels, private jets, and their preferred contractors.
LaPierre’s methods as the NRA’s executive vice president and CEO allowed him to operate the powerful gun rights organization as the trial scrutinized his leadership and spending at the nonprofit.
LaPierre watched the trial throughout sitting stoically from a seat along a courtroom wall as six jurors and six alternates were seated for the trial, which lasted almost seven weeks. The jury began deliberations February 16 reaching their verdict Friday.
Wayne LaPierre, 74, has been found liable of corruption following a six week trial
Wayne LaPierre acted as the ‘King of the NRA,’ spending lavishly on himself, punishing dissent and showering allies with country club memberships and no-show contracts’
The veteran lobbyist built the NRA into a political powerhouse during his 32 years in charge.
LaPierre charged the organization more than $11 million for private jet flights over the years and authorized $135 million in NRA contracts for a vendor whose owners provided him repeated access to a 108-foot yacht and free trips to the Bahamas, Greece, Dubai and India.
At the same time, LaPierre consolidated power and avoided scrutiny by hiring unqualified underlings who looked the other way, routing expenses through a vendor, doctoring invoices, and retaliating against board members and executives who questioned his spending, Connell said.
In one example the NRA´s former chief financial officer, Craig Spray, found himself unable to log into the organization’s computer system after he objected to LaPierre’s way of doing business.
In a November 2020 email to organization brass, Spray took issue with the boss’ authoritarian rule, writing: ‘There are no `Wayne said´ approvals at the NRA.’
LaPierre kept quiet about gifts he received from vendors until the morning he testified in the NRA´s failed bankruptcy in Texas in 2021, Connell said.
LaPierre, pictured with wife Susan, claimed the lawsuit fromw as politically motivated after she vowed to go after the NRA prior to Letitia James’ appointment as Attorney General
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the NRA, LaPierre and three current or former executives in 2020, alleging they cost the organization tens of millions of dollars from questionable expenditures
LaPierre was accused of setting himself up with a $17 million contract with the NRA if he were to exit the organization. He spent NRA money on travel consultants, luxury car services and five-star travel
LaPierre, pictured with his wife and the late Shawn and Larry King, was reelected as NRA chief in 2021 despite the controversies
For years before that, she said, he’d been checking ‘no’ on an internal disclosure form that asked if he´d received any gifts worth more than $300.
LaPierre’s actions and that of the ‘entrenched leadership’ that enabled his alleged behavior ‘breached the trust’ of the organization’s five million members, Connell said.
Their conduct violated laws governing nonprofit charities and the organization´s internal policies governing travel, expenses, conflicts of interest and whistleblower protections, she said.
‘They acted illegally over and over again for years,’ Connell told jurors.
New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the NRA, LaPierre and three current or former executives in 2020, alleging they cost the organization tens of millions of dollars from questionable expenditures.
In recent years, though, the organization has been beset by financial troubles, dwindling membership and infighting.
LaPierre has defended himself in the past, testifying in another proceeding that his yacht trips were a ‘security retreat’ because he was facing threats after mass shootings.
The other defendants, NRA general counsel John Frazer and retired CFO Wilson Phillips, have denied wrongdoing.
Another ex-NRA executive turned whistleblower, Joshua Powell, settled with James´ office on Friday. He has agreed to testify at the trial, pay the NRA $100,000 and forgo further nonprofit involvement.
The NRA trial was held in the same Manhattan courtroom as former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial
LaPierre, pictured at an NRA rally in 2022 with Donald Trump, has been found liable of diverting millions of dollars to pay for his lavish lifestyle
One private jet flight, from Washington, D.C. to Dallas, Texas, with a stop in Nebraska to pick up LaPierre’s niece, cost the NRA $59,000. Another, with a Nebraska pitstop on the way to Orlando, Florida, cost the organization $79,000.
An NRA policy shown in court said the organization only reimburses for coach-class airline flights. A commercial flight on the same routes would’ve run no more than a few hundred dollars per person, listings show.
James, a Democrat, is the state’s chief law enforcement officer and has regulatory power over nonprofit organizations incorporated in the state, such as the NRA.
James initially sought to shut the organization down, but a judge rejected that as a remedy.
The jury found that he caused $5.4 million in damages to the NRA by violating his statutory duties, but he proved he already repaid a little over $1 million to the charity.
The NRA trial was held in the same Manhattan courtroom as former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.
LaPierre resigned at the end of January. The NRA said he was exiting for health reasons.
The NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 by Union Army officers who wanted to improve marksmanship among soldiers after the Civil War.