A civil-rights group is under fire for collecting $10 million as part of a 2009 federal discrimination-suit settlement in Westchester County and not disbursing a dime to help poor minorities secure housing.
The controversy centers on the The Anti-Discrimination Center of Manhattan and its leader, Craig Gurian.
The group filed a $180 million suit in 2007 claiming Westchester had received tens of millions of dollars in federal housing funds but failed to build affordable apartments for minorities in white areas.
Then-Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano settled the suit in 2009 without admission of wrongdoing.
Gurian’s organization received more than $10 million as the whistleblower in the case, including $2.5 million to cover legal costs.
Watchdog.org, an investigative-journalism Web site, reported that Gurian wasn’t spending any of the money on housing, while paying himself and his wife, Lori Bilkson, $245,000 a year.
“That group needs to be investigated,” said Bishop Nathan Edwards, president of the United Black Clergy of Westchester.
In response, Gurian said:
“Questions about the funds that ADC received pursuant to statute because it helped uncover Westchester’s massive fraud against US taxpayers are a tired old diversion that the county has been peddling for years to divert attention from its failure to obey the consent decree.”
