DURHAM, North Carolina (RNS) — An autonomous investigation into allegations that the Rev. William Barber had been paying his ex-wife alimony from the funds of his nonprofit, concluded that the civil rights leader did nothing unhealthy.
In a court docket submitting final month, Rebecca Barber, the preacher’s ex-wife, alleged that since November 2023, the nonprofit, Repairers of the Breach, has issued monthly tests for $7,000 to a joint internal most checking account shared by Barber and his ex-wife, “below the guise of alimony or monetary abet.”
The board of Repairers of the Breach, a 10-year-archaic social exchange organization founded by Barber, hired the North Carolina legislation agency Parker Poe Adams and Bernstein to investigate the swimsuit’s teach. In an announcement issued Saturday (June 21), the board concluded, “We are capable of substantiate that all payments made to Reverend Barber align with authorized quantities, and any transfers made to a non-public account were made from his non-public wage, autonomous of Repairers of the Breach.”
Barber and his ex-wife take into accout been dueling in court docket over the distribution of their resources. The couple divorced after 37 years in November 2024 after residing apart within the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve four grownup teens and raised a daughter from William Barber’s prior relationship.
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When mediation to settle choices of the divorce failed, Rebecca Barber filed a dawdle with the draw to add Repairers of the Breach as a third occasion defendant.
“Defendant contends that Repairers of the Breach, Inc. is functionally an alter ego of Plaintiff and may presumably well presumably possess or alter resources that are marital in nature or in any other case associated to this Court’s equitable distribution resolution,” read the dawdle filed in Durham County, North Carolina, on Can also 14.
But the board’s investigation came across that Barber did now not exhaust or teach organizational funds for internal most advantage. “The chronicle is that there may be no chronicle and we’re shifting on with our work,” talked about Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, chairman of the 10-member board and a frequent collaborator with Barber.
On June 12, a district court docket settle denied a dawdle by the Rev. Barber’s attorney, Tamela Wallace, for a protective picture against Rebecca Barber.
Repairers of the Breach paid Barber better than $224,000 in wage in 2023, in response to basically the most most modern 990 build filed by internal most foundations within the U.S. That year, the organization had $8.2 million in get dangle of resources.
The organization is easiest known for reviving the Downhearted Folk’s Campaign, an anti-poverty effort bearing the title and the targets of the dawdle launched by Martin Luther King Jr. quickly ahead of his 1968 assassination.
Recently, Repairers of the Breach has begun a “Correct Monday” advertising and marketing and marketing campaign with weekly demonstrations on the U.S. Capitol geared in direction of now not easy the Republican-led funds invoice, including possible cuts to social safety-get dangle of programs equivalent to Medicaid.
Repairers is planning one other Correct Monday tell in entrance of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (June 30).
Barber is also founder of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity Faculty, where he also teaches.
Final month he married the Rev. Della Owens, pastor of St. James Church in Wilson, North Carolina, a Disciples of Christ congregation.
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