RFK Human Rights, the charity attempting a “mass bail-out” of women and teens from city jails is looking more and more like a celebrity-driven operation out of touch with reality.
Start with Sunday’s exposé by The Post’s Isabel Vincent: Kerry Kennedy got paid over $352,000 in 2016, including a $70,000 bonus, as head of the charity named for her father.
Charity Navigator’s 2016 survey of nonprofit chiefs’ salaries found that median compensation was $123,462 in 2014. Kennedy’s pay dwarfs the compensation for CEOs at medium charities ($148,659) and even large ones ($256,143).
She even out-earns her ex-husband, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose bail system she says discriminates against minorities and the poor.
Plus, she scored that $70,000 bonus at a time when RFK was seeing donations fall nearly $2.5 million from just under $13 million in 2015 to about $10.5 million in 2016.
Did she seize on the mass-bail-out idea to turn that around? It’s certainly attracted some boldfaced names to get filmed working for “social justice,” and the buzz surely helps raise cash on the cocktail-party circuit.
And never mind that the drive is putting some sketchy people on the street:
- Ralphie Myree, a serial violent offender accused of robbing a Manhattan sex store at knifepoint — sprung for $10,000.
- RFK got $5,000 bail for Fatima Smith, a suspected hooker and petty thief who allegedly posed as a cop for one holdup.
- A teen freed on $7,500 bail, Matthew Rhinehart, was on Rikers for allegedly choking and robbing a cabbie at knifepoint.
- The charity dropped $25,000 to spring Maria Pizarro, being held on burglary and resisting arrest. Sources tell The Post she has a history of prior arrests.
- All of which confirms the fears expressed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner James O’Neill and the district attorneys that recipients of RFK’s help would include violent, repeat offenders.
At this point, we’re reduced to praying that Kennedy & Co. wake up before one of their clients does something horrific.
