CNN 2012-08-16

 We begin tonight Keeping Them Honest on the trail of another charity, yet another charity that does a good job raising money and a great job paying the people who run it. As for actually helping 1 the people they’re claiming to help America’s wounded warriors 2, that’s another question. And it’s a familiar question to any of our viewers who have been watching us and especially our correspondent Drew Griffin confront charities that take in millions while giving vets 3 nearly nothing. In some cases, just some of old shoes or bags of coconut 4 M&Ms. Drew and his producer David Fitzpatrick have spent years trying to get people from a whole string of charities to explain how your donations, the money that you give, tens of millions of dollars in some cases, end up paying for candies and other useless knickknacks instead of making a difference in the lives of people who makes such incredible sacrifices for us all. So tonight, Keeping Them Honest, they have found another one of these organizations. 

 
 
 
I got to ask you about the money though. I mean, that doesn’t answer any of the questions about the money that they’re, that’s it? That’s all you’re gonna, guys going to say? 
 
 
 
That’s Drew trying to get answers from the president of a group called Help Hospitalized Veterans. Remember that name. Help Hospitalized Veterans, you’re gonna hear more on that shortly. HHV’s mission, it claims, is helping sick and injured war veterans. Sounds very good, reputable, right? The state of California, however, says the man behind so called charity have been helping themselves to excessive salaries and lavish 5 lifestyles while using accounting 6 gimmicks 7 to trick the public into giving even more money. Drew Griffin is in Californian where the attorney general’s office has just filed suit. 
 
 
 
Help Hospitalized Veterans says it’s all about raising the morale 8 of wounded
 
and sick troops by handing out these craft kits 9 in hospitals. Kits designed to challenge the mind and help pass the time while vets recover. But California authorities are seeking to make their own recovery. The civil penalties of more than $4 million for misrepresentations in soliciting 10. California says this charity paid excessive salaries, perks 11 and conducted illegal deals with donated money. All for the benefit of some board members and officers. 
 
 
 
It is a shell game. And what you, I think what we’ve seen at the end of the day is that instead of focusing their intellectual efforts and energies and the energies of the corporation on getting money to help the folks who are in need of help, our injured veterans, instead, they spend all of their energy, effort and time in these shell games to move money in order to benefit themselves. 
 
 
 
According to the charity’s latest filings, the president of HHV, Michael Lynch, was paid a salary of $389,000. And that’s just the start. In its complaint, California authorities say money donated for hospitalized veterans also paid for memberships in these two country clubs near Lynch’s home, a cost of $80,000. Donated funds paid fro this condominium near Washington, D.C. for the use of charity executives. According to the complaint, while help hospitalized veterans have been raking in millions of dollars, $65 million in just the past two years according to tax returns, the charity has misled the IRS and its donors 12 about where the funds actually go. We know $44 million has gone to fundraising. The charity says it spent $16 million on these kits for veterans but the California Attorney General’s Office questions the charity’s accounting. 
 
 
 
There have been a number of misstatements to the IRS and other regulators in order to suggest that the corporation is much more efficient than it, and in fact, is. 
 
 
 
And it’s not the first time the allegations have been made. California Congressman 13 Henry Waxman has been trying to sound the alarm on Help Hospitalized Veterans since 2008.