http://followthemagicthread.blogspot.com/2011/02/mufon-over-board-save-our-ship.html
By James Carrion, International Director, Mutual UFO Network.
(Paragraphs 8 through 14)
8 Even before I
resigned from MUFON, rumors were spreading around the organization and the
Internet that I had embezzled money from MUFON and from BAASS funds. The truth
is that I had not taken one dollar from either fund as confirmed by an
independent CPA audit of the MUFON and BAASS books. Further, I had donated
my $30,000.00 salary that I was authorized to draw from the BAASS project back
to MUFON. BAASS suspected wrong doing before this independent audit,
probably based upon the spreading rumors and demanded that MUFON Board member
Jan Harzan turn over both sets of
books to BAASS auditors.
9 Now, let’s examine this second
incredible lapse of ethical judgment on behalf of the MUFON Board. They
secretly turned over the financial books of a non-profit organization to a
for-profit organization which had no right to audit MUFON’s accounts.
Conveniently BAASS subsequently found clerical mistakes that it used to justify
reneging on its contractual obligations under the law.
10 It was also around this time that
the MUFON Board of Directors entered into secret negotiations with BAASS for
renewing the contract, promising BAASS “complete transparency” while hiding
their actions from me while I was still acting International Director.
11 In 2008, MUFON suffered a
financial loss at its annual symposium in San
Jose, California and
I
personally made up for the shortfall with $14,000.00 of my own funds. During the MUFON-BAASS
project, the MUFON Board directed me to reimburse myself the $14,000.00 from
BAASS project funds! I did not for two reasons. First this would have been a
misuse of BAASS funds and secondly I had already paid income taxes on the
$14,000.00 MUFON owed me and the only way to hide these payments from BAASS
auditors was to show it as salaried income.
12 Later on after I resigned from
MUFON, Clifford Clift in an email to me alluded that failing to reimburse
myself from BAASS funds was insubordinate behavior against the MUFON Board. In other words I was
disobeying the Board by not using BAASS project funds to cover MUFON’s
shortfall. Just months earlier Clifford Clift when responding to BAASS
inquiries into the rumored financial improprieties told BAASS that the MUFON
Board was sorry for providing poor oversight of how I administered the BAASS
project. Clifford
conveniently forgot to mention the Board’s directive to me to draw funds from
the BAASS account to pay for non-project expenses. The hypocrisy of this
Board appears to have no bounds. MUFON finally paid me the money I lent the
organization but only after I had my attorney intervened and threatened legal
action.
13 All of these allegations of unethical
behavior I make against the MUFON Board I can back up with detailed memos,
MUFON Board meeting minutes, letters and emails. I dedicated ten years
and thousands of hours to MUFON as an unpaid volunteer and almost four years as
a salaried International Director. I worked hard to professionalize its
investigative force and to fulfill its mission to the public. (Deleted)
14 The actions of this current MUFON Board
are grossly negligent and unethical and if allowed to continue unchallenged
will sink MUFON as an organization. The Board should be held accountable for its
past actions. Setting an ethics committee on MUFON members while taking a
blind eye to its own unethical behavior is what makes this MUFON Board
destructive and toxic to MUFON. Perhaps the MUFON Board needs to be reminded
of who it really serves as a non-profit. Hint, it is not a for-profit
organization.
(Unfortunately, Carrion has removed his blog from the internet and I do not have the entire article. ED.)