Shaun King: A Self-Made Repeated Con-Artist

Last updated on 2020-08-29

Shaun King, perhaps the world’s greatest con-grifter, is back in the headlines once again. This time (for the umpteenth time in probably the last four years) someone fairly new has written a piece about King’s troubling past as a so-called activist.

Now before I dig deep into this matter, I’d like to point out that several issues have long existed with King over the years. Some related to reports of fundraising; his journalism, and down to his so-called activism for black and disadvantaged communities across America.

I cannot stress this enough, if nothing else can be taken from King’s “financial disclosure report” and the latest revelations made by DeRay Mckesson — this can be said. King’s misleading and often eyebrow-raising behaviour when he is questioned over his own actions, indeed, is actually enough to turn even the brightest of minds away from him.

Before I go deeper into his financial issues and misleading factoids, let’s talk about some things found in this Medium post by King himself. In the article, several words are present that strike me as odd as to why they’re relevant in the first place.

Now back to the programming here. Shaun King has repeatedly been accused of misappropriating funds brought in by fundraisers across America (and I mean that literally). As DeRay noted, several fundraisers over the years have raised very real questions as to what Shaun actually has done with their money. Despite his claims and wishy-washy answers otherwise, he has never provided ample evidence to indicate or free himself of accusations of wrongdoing. This is a direct reference to the fact that Shaun released a disclosure document of his finances that was literally created by people he knew (rather than an independent 3rd party body).

This is where the concern really starts. King ‘s refusal to use an independent body indicates that his real financial records are hiding something he may not want the world to see. This has happened before on a number of occasions [see here].

It’s really worth noting here (at least for contextual purposes) that Shaun King is a former “mega-church” pastor.

One of the most detailed pieces on his financial misdoings that I could find brought me back to a Daily Beast article from 2015. In that article — The Beast acknowledges that King a fundraising mastermind but at the time had long been accused of masterminding his own rise to the top using other people’s money.

King’s own alleged misuse of funds and trouble with life-in-general apparently dates back to when he was both a schoolteacher in Atlanta and a pastor in the area. I mention these two factoids here — because the original article referenced found that King had began misusing funds during these two positions. In fact, during this time he ran an organization [per public records] called Twit Change (he would later go on to sell that very organization).

King had also at the time been openly caught lying about just how much was actually raised. Further more, religious groups (per this report) found that only about $200,000 in grants actually went towards the supposed Haiti efforts. Of the roughly $550,000 or so actually raised, the remaining of the funds appears to have never actually been accounted for.

During this particular relief-fundraiser, King claimed to have raised more than $1m. When in fact the organisation only managed to pull in about $540,000 (but in turn had only actually donated about $200,000 in grants to what had been a Haiti Relief Fund).

This is probably one of the key moments in which King ‘s alleged history of fraud first began.

It gets even worse. Following the Haiti Relief scandal, King was then involved in another scandal with a crowdfunding site called HopeMob (that it appears he may have actually helped create). During his time with this site (which he ironically shuttered and sold amid deep questioning and concerns about their financing) he also made off with tens of thousands of dollars.

At the time only one Internal Revenue Service filing appeared via public records. It showed that King only made partial payments to those who they were supposedly for, and instead, made off with about $160,000 in cash compensation. Alike the first scandal, questions and inquiries soon arose after payments were not made to others; things didn’t add up, and King refused any line of questioning that suggested he was a con-artist.

Alright — so let’s recap up to this point. In the Medium post by Deray McKesson, Deray alleged that each and every time Shaun is questioned about finances and like… he runs. This is evident and well documented if I’m being quite frank. I’ve intentionally attached links; photographs, and links to some of the only available IRS documents to add context to the growing problem here.

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A history on Twit Change

Twit Change according to public records was a “charity” organisation of sorts founded by Shaun King. The organisation alike many others failed to answer questions about its finances; activities, and was ultimately shuttered (and sold) to investors in 2014. Shaun King never answered questions about the veracity of the claims made against the organisation, or the fact that it appeared he very blatantly misappropriated hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in raised funds.

The organisation came before another came. That of Hope Mob (which ended abruptly almost the same way Twit Change did).

A history on Hope Mob

By the time word had spread that King had allegedly been misusing funds from the Haiti Relief Fund, news of Hope Mob became public fodder. Using his social presence, King helped bring the crowdfunding effort to fruition. But what would happen next in fact remains under question and has never been addressed by King himself.

In 2013 alone, the org took in about $430,000 according to that IRS filing I shared a few paragraphs above. That’s quite a bit of money for fundraising efforts — and it actually lays the basis again as to why King needs to answer directly through an independent audit for his financial doings.

The organisation was also shuttered and sold like the one above. Questions were never fully answered.

In conclusion…

The questionably black “activist” has suffered countless and very serious blows to his credibility. We cannot continue to allow Shaun King to parade around as if he has never done anything wrong. He is often intentionally wrong and frequently misrepresents his fundraising efforts in an effort for personal gain.