Sacramento NAACP sues former leaders for fraud over county meals program scandal
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sacramento NAACP filed suit alleging former leaders misused pandemic meal funds.
- County audit found over $2.6M in unaccounted and disallowed Dine-In 2 expenses.
- National NAACP suspended three officials after probes revealed financial misconduct.
Sacramento’s NAACP is suing its former chapter leaders for fraud and breach of contract, alleging they used the civil rights organization as cover to enrich themselves with funds meant to feed hungry and vulnerable Sacramento County seniors and families at the height of the pandemic.
The chapter alleges that former Greater Sacramento NAACP president Betty Williams, former education chair Salena Pryor and former chapter treasurer Lorraine Moore diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Dine-In 2, the COVID-era Sacramento County meals program that the county had charged the local chapter to run.
The Sacramento chapter, one of the nation’s oldest, called out the scheme in a blistering 20-page lawsuit filed last month in Sacramento Superior Court saying the three women hid behind the NAACP’s name for financial gain.
“This case is a story about individuals who chose one of our country’s bleakest periods to line their pockets at the expense of vulnerable seniors living in isolation and families suffering from food deprivation,” the complaint filed Aug. 29, reads. “But unlike many COVID-related schemes, the perpetrators hid behind the name and reputation of the nation’s premier civil rights organization to carry out their wrongdoing.”
Attorneys for the Sacramento chapter are seeking damages “including but not limited to the loss of program funds, harm to plaintiff’s reputation, and consequential damages flowing from defendants’ misconduct,” along with restitution and punitive damages to “deter similar conduct in the future.”
The chapter’s complaint noted the fraudulent and missing invoices, misappropriation of funds, questionable accounting and conflicts of interest that led to the national NAACP’s investigation into the officials and that highlight a damning Sacramento County audit released this spring.
Sacramento County is demanding Sacramento’s NAACP pay back nearly $950,000 in so-called disallowed costs — program expenditures rejected by county auditors — and more than $1.7 million in costs that could not be accounted for.
Sacramento County finance officials have recommended the county’s Department of Human Assistance “take immediate and appropriate action” to get their money back.
“As a result of defendants’ failure to account for the multitude of discrepancies uncovered by NAACP’s and the county’s investigations, the county’s demand for repayment, and the cloud of doubt that looms over this organization due to a few rogue members, Sac NAACP is filing this litigation,” the complaint read.
National NAACP officials were first alerted to the financial misconduct in Sacramento in April 2023 after receiving the chapter’s annual financial report.
National officials at the civil rights organization soon after brought allegations of “extensive” financial improprieties. The allegations led to the October 2023 suspensions of Williams, Moore and Pryor after internal investigations into their handling of the county’s Dine-In 2 program found widespread financial misconduct first reported by The Sacramento Bee.
Williams, the chapter’s longest-serving president, remains suspended from the civil rights organization indefinitely. Moore was handed a five-year suspension. Pryor’s suspension is six years.
“This is more than a financial violation of our constitution and bylaws — it is a betrayal of our community, our allies, and the legacy we’ve spent over a century building,” Derrick Johnson, the NAACP’s national president and chief executive officer since 2017, said in a statement to The Bee in May. “The individuals identified deliberately exploited the trust that our members, partners, and local businesses place in the NAACP name.”
A lengthy Sacramento County-commissioned audit, the results of which were released in May, and a Sacramento Bee investigation exposed rampant self-dealing by the former chapter officers.
Both probes found the former officers funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of Dine-In 2 program funds into their private businesses that were designated as independent contractors — Williams’ 1 Solution, Moore’s Elite Professional and the Black Small Business Association, led by Pryor — as well as through contracts to small businesses run by family members and other associates.
“They mismanaged, misappropriated, converted and embezzled public funds for their own personal use and possession, without the knowledge or consent of Sac NAACP,” chapter lawyers said in the complaint.
Sacramento County executed the contract with the Greater Sacramento NAACP chapter for Dine-In 2, known formally as the County Food Insecurity Pilot Program, in 2022, after complaints from Williams and others in Sacramento’s Black community that not enough Black-owned businesses shared in the millions of dollars of federal food aid grants administered by the county.
The pilot program led by the Greater Sacramento NAACP would deliver restaurant-quality meals to financially strapped and isolated Sacramento families during the pandemic prepared by eateries struggling through the statewide lockdown orders.
Officials at the county’s Department of Human Assistance touted the chapter’s outreach experience in the county’s Black and brown communities.
The program served roughly 95,000 meals to Sacramento County households and the unhoused, chapter attorneys said, citing the Dine-In 2 program’s final report.
But attorneys in the lawsuit allege Williams, Pryor and Moore saw opportunity in Dine-In 2, alleging the former officers “acted in their own self-interest from the very start of the program.”
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