HOUSTON - Just weeks after some 20,000 demonstrators protested what they decried as unequal justice aimed at six black teenagers in the Louisiana town of Jena, controversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers' legal defense.

Parents of the "Jena 6" teens have refused to publicly account for how they are spending a large portion of the cash, estimated at up to $250,000, that resides in a bank account they control.

Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated black radio host who is leading a major fundraising drive on behalf of the Jena 6, has declined to reveal how much he has collected. Attorneys for the first defendant to go to trial, Mychal Bell, say they have yet to receive any money from him.

Meanwhile, photos and videos are circulating across the Internet that raise questions about how the donated money is being spent. One photo shows Robert Bailey, one of the Jena 6 defendants, smiling and posing with $100 bills stuffed in his mouth. Another shows defendants Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis modeling like rap stars at the Black Entertainment Television Hip-Hop music awards last month in Atlanta.

The teenagers' parents have strongly denied that they have misused any of the donated money. Bailey's mother, for example, insisted that the $100 bills shown in the photograph were cash her son had earned as a park maintenance worker.

But civil rights leaders who helped organize support for the youths say they are concerned about the perceptions that are spreading.

"There are definitely questions out there about the money," said Alan Bean, director of a Texas-based group, Friends of Justice, who was the first civil rights activist to investigate the Jena 6 case. "I hate to even address this issue because it inevitably will raise questions as to all of the money that has been raised, and that is going to hurt the defendants."

Only one national civil rights group, Color of Change, has fully disclosed how the $212,000 it collected for the Jena 6 via a massive Internet campaign has been distributed. The grass-roots group, which has nearly 400,000 members, has posted images of canceled checks and other signed documents on its Web site showing that all but $1,230 was paid out in October in roughly equal amounts to attorneys for the Jena youths.

Yet that transparency did not halt acrimony over the fundraising from breaking into public view on Baisden's popular radio show last week, when Baisden invited Bell's father, Marcus Jones, to accuse Color of Change founder James Rucker of misapplying the funds.

Jones offered no evidence for his assertion. But Baisden told his listeners that Rucker "sounds shady to me," before promoting his own fundraiser, scheduled for this weekend, which aims to collect at least $1 million for the Jena 6 and other black defendants nationwide.

On the eve of the Sept. 20 civil rights march, Baisden advertised a book-signing and solicited cash donations for the Jena 6 families at an Alexandria, La., rally, but his business manager, Pamela Exum, declined to specify how much was collected or how the money was distributed.

Color of Change officials call Baisden's broadcast comments slanderous and say they are contemplating legal action.

"We are trying to clear our good name," said Mervyn Marcano, the group's spokesman. "It's distressing that right now the conversation around the Jena 6 is on a 'Jenagate' that doesn't exist, not the actual issues of how justice is administered in that town."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true

A lot of accusations being flung.
Hopefully the truth comes out substantiated. But I won't be surprised if there are some illicit dealings.