Think Tank Directors Sued

Overview

The Directors and officers of the National Center for Policy Analysis are being sued for gross violation of their fiduciary duties.

The defendants include Fox News commentator Allen West, local TV talk show host Dennis McCuistion, author and commentator Jim Amos and Steve Ivy, founder of Heritage Auctions (which bills itself as the “world’s largest collectibles auctioneer”.)

Ivy was the Chairman of the now defunct think tank. West was the Vice Chairman.  West, McCuistion and Amos all served as CEOs over the last three years of the organization’s life.

Former board members Tex Gross (Commerce Street Holdings) and Tony Batman (1st Global) are also named as defendants.

The suit is brought by Richard Walker, a former Chief Operating Officer of the organization and long-time employee. This suit is likely to be overtaken by the bankruptcy trustee, on behalf of all the creditors.

The suit alleges that the NCPA has been financially insolvent since at least September 2016, when it had a negative net worth of $1.7 million. Yet the organization continued to incur expenses and run up debt until its closing in June 2017.

“Defendants abdicated their fiduciary duties and their duty of care to the NCPA regarding financial oversight and fiscal prudence,” it says. As an example, the suit mentions the embezzlement of $1,000,000 by the chief financial officer in 2015/2016.

One board member has asked the Texas Attorney General to intervene, stop the sale of assets, and supervise the organization’s dissolution.

A particularly contentious issue is the sale of the NCPA’s web domain to the National Association of Community Pharmacists, which upon receipt converted the site to its own use and severed the Internet links to all NCPA documents. As a result, 35 years of studies, policy reports, briefings, blog posts, photographs, etc., have completely disappeared from the Internet.

Official Document:

18 01 11 Original Petition – DO Lawuit