Friday, October 30, 2015
New York Community Trust to Receive $650K from AG’s Settlement with Fraudulent Clothing-Bin Operator
Three local organizations are in hot water after the state attorney general found they engaged in a "fraudulent charitable solicitation scheme" related to used clothing collection boxes that drove more than $10 million into the coffers of a Yonkers business.
The business, Thrift Land USA, and owner Carl Vella operated pink and blue clothing bins — painted to look like houses with a child smiling in the window — throughout the Lower Hudson Valley and Connecticut. The bins made it seem as if the clothing was going to benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland County and a now-shuttered Bronx charity.
Instead, only a fraction of the proceeds made their way to the charitable organizations. . .