The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) - by Jason Grant and Alexi Friedman

In 2005, authorities say, a longtime community organization run by well-known Newark activist Fredrica Bey won a $345,325 grant from the federal government aimed at keeping "at-risk" youths off the streets by offering them a host of after-school activities.

The non-profit group’s website touted the Boycott Crime Campaign program "as a wake-up call to urban communities" and its ultimate goal, officials said, was to "empty jail cells and reduce the American prison population to zero."

But last week, the federal government sued Bey and the organization she runs: Women In Support of the Million Man March. The complaint alleges Bey and the 16-year-old women's group took the grant money and funneled it elsewhere, using the funds not for troubled youth, but to keep her organization, community center and charter school afloat.

In addition to the organization and Bey, the complaint names as a defendant former East Orange police officer Delacy Davis, 49, who worked as a consultant for Bey’s group. Davis’ attorney said his client has served as a head of the woman’s group’s Adelaide L. Sanford Charter School since 2007.

According to the complaint, the grant money went "to cover unrelated expenses or obligations of the parent organization."

Among the chief allegations are that the organization used the grant funds to cover its "own debts, operating costs, or expenditures;" that it had "wildly inflated" rent-related and facilities fees ostensibly needed for the Boycott Crime Campaign in space the women’s group already owns; that it failed to give the program any dedicated space in the organization’s center; and that it used grant money to pay staff whose mostly failed to include the anti-crime program.

The lawsuit also accuses the organization of using some of the money to make "suspicious payments" to Davis. According to the complaint, Davis — who runs an East Orange community-based organization himself — took grant money as payment for nine workshops in "conflict resolution" that he would put on as part of Bey’s Boycott Crime Campaign program.

But, the complaint alleges, Davis actually used the money for an event attended by 26 Bermudans and only about 15 youth from his East Orange center.

What’s more, the complaint says, the Bermudans flew into Newark and were whisked off to some cultural and sociological events, as well as to restaurants, the movies, an aquarium, shopping trips, a bowling alley, and a professional basketball game. The complaint also alleges Davis was separately compensated for his activities with the Bermudans, as the Bermudan government had allegedly paid his private corporation about $87,500 for "consulting" with them on gang issues.

News of the lawsuit came as a shock to some in Newark.

"She’s a beautiful flower in the city of Newark. She is," Thomas Ashley, Bey’s attorney, said today. "And it’s unfortunate that these allegations have been made because they have no merit whatsoever." Ashley also represents Women In Support of the Million Man March in the suit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages and repayment of the funds.

According to some Newark community activists, Bey has had built an excellent reputation over the years that had yet to be tarnished.

Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, said he was "floored" by the allegations when told of them today.

"You just dropped a bomb on me," he said, adding that he’s known Bey for 25 years and that she’s dedicated her life to advocacy.

"I have great respect for her and the work she has done," Hamm said. "She’s always been a person that was concerned about her community, that was active in the community. She is concerned about people and has helped a lot of people. She’s developed certainly a regional, and maybe a national reputation."

Ashley said the Boycott Crime Campaign, which began in 1998, "was involved in numerous activities and the program indeed benefited the city of Newark. No doubt."

Ashley called Bey a friend who has an "impeccable" reputation in the Newark community.

Davis’ lawyer, Stephen Turano, said the grant money Davis got through the organization was used properly.

"The purpose was to counsel and mentor inner city children, children in the east orange community," he said. "It taught them life skills, anger management; one example was how to write to checks."

Davis also runs the organization "Black Cops Against Police Brutality," for which the women’s group has hosted receptions.

Bey’s organization has evolved over the past 16 years, according to its website. In the lead up to Million Man March in the mid-1990s, Bey and a group of Newark-area women coalesced and "vowed" to continue the "spirit and momentum they had achieved during the march." Today, the women refer to themselves on their website as "mothers, grandmothers, wives, daughters and sistahs in the community who have committed to continuing the ‘spirit of the march,’ but more importantly the legacy left by strong, determined African people throughout the diaspora."