Minuteman Project headed to court over internal fight

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Sunday, March 18, 2007

Minuteman Project headed to court over internal fight

The anti-illegal immigration organization has become immobilized, with a court date this week to sort out its internal battle for control.
By MARTIN WISCKOL
The Orange County Register

It was a match made in activist heaven.

Huntington Beach's Barbara Coe had toiled for more than a decade against illegal immigration, becoming the gritty grande dame of the movement. Just as progress was sputtering, along came Aliso Viejo's Jim Gilchrist and his two-week Minuteman citizen border surveillance. The April 2005 event along a desolate stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border attracted 880 volunteers and thrust the issue back into the national spotlight. It revitalized the movement and, with Gilchrist, gave it a public face.

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Today, the Gilchrist-Coe partnership lays in tatters. On the eve of congressional debate over legalizing those now in the country without documents – a proposal opposed by Gilchrist and Coe – the fiercest battle for the activists is among themselves. Coe and two other directors of the Minuteman Project tossed founder Gilchrist out of his official post in a January mutiny and took control of the organization's primary bank account. Gilchrist then sued the trio, saying they lacked the authority to take over. On Wednesday, a Superior Court judge will consider Gilchrist's argument that the group and its assets should be returned to him. But restoring the movement's momentum is another issue altogether, as bickering over financial accountability has tarnished the effort's public image.

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In papers filed with the Superior Court, Coe, Courtney and Stewart say they were worried about fundraising improprieties that may have violated U.S. Postal Service regulations and Internal Revenue Service code. A lawyer for the three has filed letters with those two agencies, raising concerns that the failure to secure tax-exempt status may have led to violations... Gilchrist, a retired accountant, acknowledges that the group's accounting left something to be desired and that he mistakenly bounced checks for a short time. But he denied wrongdoing. "I want to have an audit and get internal office help," he said. "But temporary mismanagement is not a crime."

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http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1623044.php