The wife of House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings is facing new allegations of self-dealing and perjury following the disclosure of financial dealings between her charity and her for-profit consulting firm, according to an IRS complaint a watchdog group filed Friday in response to a Daily Caller News Foundation report.
The National Legal and Policy Center’s complaint is an amendment to its original May 20 complaint against Maya Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity, the Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS), which alleged that the nonprofit’s overlapping relationship with her for-profit company, Global Policy Solutions, LLC, could have derived an “illegal private benefit” for her and her husband.
The NLPC’s amended complaint filed Friday highlights the charity’s audited financial reports, first reported by TheDCNF, which detail how it paid Rockeymoore Cummings’s for-profit venture over $250,000 in “management fees” between 2013 and 2015.
TheDCNF’s report on the arrangement “increases the imperative for an immediate Internal Revenue Service investigation,” the NLPC stated in its amended complaint. (RELATED: Elijah Cummings’s Wife Used Her Charity To Pay Her For-Profit Company, Documents Show)
The amended complaint states that Rockeymoore Cummings “appears to have been paid twice for the same services,” noting that she collects a “substantial full-time salary” from her charity on top of the 5% management fee it pays her for-profit venture.
For example, Rockeymoore Cummings earned a salary of $152,155 from her charity in 2015, according to its Form 990 tax return that year. Also in 2015, her charity paid her consulting firm $78,178 in “management fees,” according to its audited financial statements.
“It’s self-dealing. It’s taking the charity’s resources and turning them into personal profits,” NLPC investigator Tom Anderson previously told TheDCNF. “IRS law doesn’t allow a charity for this purpose. This isn’t for the public interest, this is for her personal interest. You can’t do that.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (L) performs the ceremonial swearing-in with incoming Chair of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings and wife Maya Rockeymoore. (Photo: ALEX EDELMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
The NLPC’s amended complaint also alleges that Rockeymoore Cummings could have committed perjury by answering “no” in her charity’s 2015 tax return when asked if it conducted business with an entity owned by an officer or director of the charity.
“As a Director, Officer and Key Employee of CGPS at the same time she was the sole Governor of [Global Policy Solutions, LLC], Maya Rockeymoore Cummings should have answered ‘yes,'” the NLPC’s complaint states. “The false entry appears to be willful. Form 990 was signed by Maya Rockeymoore Cummings ‘under penalties of perjury.'”
Multiple nonprofit experts previously told TheDCNF the 5% management fee Rockeymoore Cummings’s charity pays her private company raises red flags. Her charity is funded by companies with interests before her husband’s congressional committee, according to the Washington Examiner.
“It’s a red flag for a powerful member like Elijah Cummings to have a family member receiving money from entities with issues before his powerful committee,” said Scott Walter, the president of the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center.
Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, listed his wife’s consulting firm on his most recent financial disclosure reports as an asset worth between $250,001 and $500,000.
Rockeymoore Cummings, who chairs the Maryland Democratic Party, said in May in response to the NLPC’s original complaint that her organizations “have been guided by legal and accounting professionals and comply with accepted industry and ethical standards.”
Amended IRS complaint again… on Scribd
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