Okra Project’s Former Executive Director Charged With Stealing Nearly $100,000 of Mutual Aid Funds

Getty Images; The Okra Project

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Black transgender community activist and nonprofit leader Dominique Morgan was indicted this week on felony fraud charges in Brooklyn, after Morgan allegedly siphoned almost $100,000 from a bail fund she oversaw at the trans-led nonprofit The Okra Project.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced the charges in a press release on Tuesday, writing that Morgan had been charged with one count of second-degree grand larceny and 23 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. Morgan was released without bail and is scheduled to reappear in court in December. If convicted, she could receive between five and 15 years in prison for the grand larceny charge, Gonzalez wrote.

The charges stem from Morgan’s alleged misconduct in July 2022 as executive director of The Okra Project, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that focuses on feeding and providing community support for Black trans women. Morgan, who also previously worked as the executive director of prison abolition nonprofit Black & Pink, claimed to have begun a bail fund at The Okra Project for jailed trans people in need. But Gonzalez’s office alleges that Morgan instead stole $99,000 from the fund and diverted it in her own bank account, using the money to pay for Mercedes-Benz payments, clothing, meals, and a $19,000 “closet renovation” from upscale home renovation service California Closets.

According to The Okra Project’s 2022 tax filings, the organization — which was at the time a project of its sponsoring nonprofit, Arts Business Collaborative (ABC) — reported paying “excess benefits” to Morgan totaling $34,624. In a field for supplemental information, the organization wrote that Morgan was fired on August 3, 2022, but that the nonprofit only became aware of the alleged misappropriation after Morgan was dismissed. Okra leadership “repeatedly asked Ms. Morgan to provide an explanation for the payments,” which reached a grand total of $163,665, “or to return the diverted funds […] no explanation has been provided and the funds have not been returned.” The same filings reported that Morgan drew a base salary of $327,558 as Okra’s executive director.

In a statement posted to Instagram late Tuesday, The Okra Project’s current executive director Gabrielle Souza, who assumed the directorship in January 2023, acknowledged Morgan’s indictment and said the nonprofit would press forward. “As an organization dedicated to uplifting the Black trans community, we are deeply committed to accountability and transparency,” Souza wrote. “The Okra Project stands firm in our commitment to those we serve and to our donors, remaining steadfast in our mission to provide essential support and advocacy.”

In response to Them’s request for additional comment, Souza said that a member of Okra’s executive team noticed the missing funds at the same time that ABC leadership requested proof-of-payment receipts for the individuals who supposedly received bail support. (Gonzalez’s press release this week noted that Morgan “submitted purported bail receipts for 23 individuals” who she said were arrested in Georgia and Nebraska, but an internal Okra audit revealed that no matching arrest records existed.) “The bail receipts Ms. Morgan produced were not authentic. This raised significant concerns,” Souza said, resulting in Morgan’s termination. Souza added that The Okra Project became its own 501(c)3 nonprofit earlier this year, which she said would promote greater transparency within the organization so that “similar challenges would be avoided in the future.”

“I am consistently working to build trust with our supporters and the community, acknowledging The Okra Project’s past challenges,” Souza told Them. “Since assuming leadership, I have dedicated our efforts toward meaningful programs and active community engagement. With robust policies, procedures, and tools now in place, we are committed to safeguarding the integrity of our organization and its resources. We continue to seek innovative ways to uphold our values and advance our essential work in the community.”

The Okra Project previously faced public allegations of financial misconduct in January this year, when members of the Transgender Education Foundation (TEF) accused Okra leadership of “gross misappropriation of millions of dollars” during and after Morgan’s tenure as executive director. (TEF’s allegations included the statement that Okra did not spend 70% of its funding on programming “per IRS requirements”; while that ratio is often used to measure charities’ effectiveness, and the IRS may audit organizations that spend large amounts on overhead costs rather than programming, that ratio is not specifically required by law.)

“You know our systems are broke when 5 gay DJs can bring 10k of supplies back before the national guard does,” read a meme, referring to the work of mutual aid efforts like Pansy Collective.

In response, Souza wrote at the time that TEF’s statement was “retaliative […] defamatory, divulges confidential info, and is also inaccurate,” adding that those accusations contained “several material inaccuracies.” Souza declined to comment further this week, but emphasized that “millions of dollars have not at all been misappropriated within The Okra Project, Inc.”

Last year, the city of Omaha, NE named a street after Morgan, making her the first formerly incarcerated person in the state and the first Black trans woman in the U.S. to receive such an honor. Morgan was previously incarcerated for 10 years, including 18 months spent in solitary confinement, a torturous “safety measure” commonly inflicted on imprisoned trans people. She has been the program director for Borealis Philanthropy’s Fund for Trans Generations since December 2022. Neither Borealis nor Morgan’s attorney reportedly returned The New York Times’ request for comment on Tuesday.

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Originally Appeared on them.