President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Oklahoma GovernorMary Fallin in the Oval Office, May 20, 2013. The President spoke with Gov. Fallin to express his concern for those who have been affected by the severe weather beginning last night and continuing today. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
As the President told Governor Fallin tonight, the administration — through FEMA — is committed to providing all the assistance it can to Oklahoma as the response effort unfolds. Already, FEMA has deployed an Incident Management Assistance Team, Urban Search & Rescue Teams, and an Medical Emergency Response Support Team to provide resources to hard-hit areas in Oklahoma.
FEMA is urging those in impacted areas to listen carefully to instructions from local officials, and to take the recommended protective measures. Residents should monitor local radio or TV stations, or the National Weather Service at www.weather.gov.
As the response effort develops, here is a list of resources for those affected:
“It is one of the great honors of my life to be able to address this gathering here today,” President Obama told the graduates. “Your generation is uniquely poised for success unlike any generation of African Americans that came before it.”
President Barack Obama is reflected in a mirror as he talks with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough prior to participating in the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., May 19, 2013. A painting of the President stands in the foreground. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
“It is one of the great honors of my life to be able to address this gathering here today,” President Obama told the graduates. He spoke about Morehouse’s history, and “ the unique sense of purpose that this place has always infused — the conviction that this is a training ground not only for individual success, but for leadership that can change the world.”
“Your generation is uniquely poised for success unlike any generation of African Americans that came before it,” President Obama said.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t have work — because if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that too few of our brothers have the opportunities that you’ve had here at Morehouse. In troubled neighborhoods all across this country — many of them heavily African American — too few of our citizens have role models to guide them. Communities just a couple miles from my house in Chicago, communities just a couple miles from here — they’re places where jobs are still too scarce and wages are still too low; where schools are underfunded and violence is pervasive; where too many of our men spend their youth not behind a desk in a classroom, but hanging out on the streets or brooding behind a jail cell.
My job, as President, is to advocate for policies that generate more opportunity for everybody — policies that strengthen the middle class and give more people the chance to climb their way into the middle class. Policies that create more good jobs and reduce poverty, and educate more children, and give more families the security of health care, and protect more of our children from the horrors of gun violence. That’s my job. Those are matters of public policy, and it is important for all of us — black, white and brown — to advocate for an America where everybody has got a fair shot in life. Not just some. Not just a few.
Graduates react as President Barack Obama delivers remarks during the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., May 19, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
“But along with collective responsibilities, we have individual responsibilities,” the President said. “As Morehouse Men, you now wield something even more powerful than the diploma you’re about to collect — and that’s the power of your example. So what I ask of you today is the same thing I ask of every graduating class I address: Use that power for something larger than yourself.”
So, yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and the powerful, or if you can also find some time to defend the powerless. Sure, go get your MBA, or start that business. We need black businesses out there. But ask yourselves what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood. The most successful CEOs I know didn’t start out intent just on making money — rather, they had a vision of how their product or service would change things, and the money followed.
Some of you may be headed to medical school to become doctors. But make sure you heal folks in underserved communities who really need it, too. For generations, certain groups in this country — especially African Americans — have been desperate in need of access to quality, affordable health care. And as a society, we’re finally beginning to change that.
“And finally, as you do these things, do them not just for yourself, but don’t even do them just for the African American community. I want you to set your sights higher,” President Obama said. “It’s not just the African American community that needs you. The country needs you. The world needs you.”
Success may not come quickly or easily. But if you strive to do what’s right, if you work harder and dream bigger, if you set an example in your own lives and do your part to help meet the challenges of our time, then I’m confident that, together, we will continue the never-ending task of perfecting our union.
President Barack Obama delivers remarks during the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, May 19, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Delivers Commencement Addresses at Bowie State, Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School
First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks during the Bowie State University commencement at the Comcast Center in College Park, Md., May 17, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
On Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered the commencement address to the Bowie State University Class of 2013. Bowie State, which opened just two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, “was founded not just to educate African Americans, but to teach them how to educate others,” the First Lady explained.
And since then, generations of students from all backgrounds have come to this school to be challenged, inspired and empowered. And they have gone on to become leaders here in Maryland and across this country, running businesses, educating young people, leading the high-tech industries that will power our economy for decades to come.
That is the story of Bowie State University, the commitment to educating our next generation and building ladders of opportunity for anyone willing to work for it. All of you are now part of that story. And with that tremendous privilege comes an important set of responsibilities — responsibilities that you inherit the moment you leave this stadium with that diploma in your hand.
On Saturday, she traveled to Nashville to speak to the graduating class of Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School. The First Lady took the opportunity to talk to the students – all of whom are going on to higher education or the military – about some of the skills they’ll need as they make their way through college and through life: resilience, grit, and the ability to pick themselves up when they fall.
And here’s the thing, graduates: These qualities are not ones that you’re born with. They’re not like the color of your eyes or your height. They’re not qualities that are beyond your control. Instead, you can dictate whether you’ll have grit. You decide how hard you’ll work. So I want you to make those choices right now, today, if you haven’t already done so. Make those choices. I want you to tell yourself that no matter what challenges you face, that you will commit yourself to achieving your goals, no matter where life takes you.
But, she said, “do not waste a minute living someone else’s dream.”
Each of us has unique gifts. But it takes a lot of work, a lot of real work to discover what brings you joy. It just doesn’t happen; it requires you spending some time. And you won’t find what you love simply by checking boxes or padding your GPA. You won’t figure it out only by listening to your guidance counselor, or your friends, or even your parents. You can only find your passion by looking inside yourself. And that’s hard work.
First Lady Michelle Obama Delivers Commencement Address at MLK, JR. Magnet High School Commencement
Published on May 18, 2013
The First Lady, Michelle Obama, delivers the commencement address to graduates of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Academic Magnet High School for Health Sciences and Engineering at Historic Pearl High in Nashville, TN on May 18 at 1:00 PM. The school serves approximately 1,200 students in grades 7 through 12 with a curriculum that emphasizes mathematics and science. Housed in the historic Pearl High School building, MLK is consistently ranked among the best public schools in the nation for its academic rigor and high graduation rate.
The First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Obama At Bowie State University Commencement.
In Case You Missed It
Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:
Weekly Address: The President Talks About How to Build a Rising, Thriving Middle Class
President Obama talks about his belief that a rising, thriving middle class is the true engine of economic growth, and that to reignite that engine and continue to build on the progress we’ve made over the last four years, we need to invest in three areas: jobs, skills and opportunity.
The federal government targeted this company (IRP Solutions) shut them down, prosecuted and convicted its executives.
I am sending this to you because you either have a blog or you have access to people, and I need your help. WE need your help spreading the word about this injustice.
I would like to enlist your help with something if you believe you are interested and can help a just cause. I am working with freetheirp6.org & a-justcause.com, 2 organizations involved with fighting a legal injustice done to 6 businessmen from Colorado. These 6 businessmen have been tried, convicted and imprisoned all because they invented a software program the federal government and the “big boys”, such as IBM, wanted. These 6 businessmen are now in prison, snatched from family and their lives, for being brilliant and following their American dream.
I am asking you to blog about this injustice done these 6 men. This subject may be off topic from what you normally blog about. The reality is this could happen yo you, me and anyone who stands up to the United States Government and our corrupt judicial system. No One Is Safe.
I am asking that if you agree with this cause please use all or part of this 3 blog post series. I’m not interested in you using my name, using the name of TheObamaCrat™ or linking back to my blog. This is not about personal recognition but about freeing these 6 men. PLEASE feel free to copy & paste what you need from my blog post or from the Free The 6 web site located here freetheirp6.org. You can find links to the original articles I used in my initial post here freetheirp6.org. The web site spearheading this project to free these 6 men is a-justcause.com.
I thank you in advance for whatever help you can give us. If you decide this is not your fight or that it is outside the scope of your blog, I fully understand.
This is a story about how prosecutorial tunnel vision created a tragic communication failure. The criminal justice system exists to give everyone a chance to tell their story. Juries decide who brings the best story to the table. Bad things happen when the system amplifies one story while silencing the other. (Dr. Alan Bean, Executive Director, Friends of Justice)
Community advocate H.A. Jabar and platinum music producer Larry Gates collaborated to produce a song to bring awareness to the IRP case.
The song entitled “IRP-6 Needs Justice” was released this week on YouTube as part of a new campaign supporting the fight to gain freedom for the IRP6 (Gary Walker, David Banks, Kendrick Barnes, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart and David Zirpolo). Please visit H.A. Jabar and thank him for his work in helping The IRP6 (Gary Walker, David Banks, Kendrick Barnes, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart and David Zirpolo).
The federal government targeted this company, shut them down, prosecuted and convicted its executives
Dr. Alan Bean, Executive Director of Friends of Justice, has partnered with A Just Cause to look into the wrongful conviction of six executives who ran a software development company. A synopsis of Dr. Bean’s initial review is shown in the following paragraphs.
This is a story about how prosecutorial tunnel vision created a tragic communication failure. The criminal justice system existsto give everyone a chance to tell their story. Juries decide who brings the best story to the table. Bad things happen when the system amplifies one story while silencing the other.
The IRP-6 case is characterized by an unusually deep dividebetween the government’s story and the defendants’ story.
Such a wide gap is rare, 95% of federal cases are resolved short of trial because few defendants ultimately maintain their innocence. If a federal case proceeds to trial it is eitherbecause the government isn’t offering much of a plea deal or because the defendants actually believe in their own innocence. There are two ways of approaching the issue and everything depends on where you start. It has been said that where we place our focus determines what we miss.
Following an FBI raid in 2005, a criminal investigation and two grand jury hearings in 2007 and 2009, six executives of IRP Solutions Corporation went to trial in the fall of 2011. The case was tried by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The defendants—David Banks, Demetrius Harper, Gary Walker, Clinton Stewart, David Zirpolo and Kendrick Barnes—represented themselves pro se after feeling they did not have accurate legal representation. The Honorable Christine M. Arguello served as the judge in this case.
Opening statements began September 27, 2011. In opening statements and throughout the remainder of the trial, Mr. Kirsch accused the defendants of running a scam by committing conspiracy, mail and wire fraud to gain $5 million worth of free labor from staffing companies. The prosecution insisted that the defendants openly lied to several staffing companies by stating that IRP Solutions had signed contracts with law enforcement agencies to sell their software, CILC; thus, the executives committed fraud.
The defense admitted that some of the facts in Kirch’s opening statement were true, but many were false. Mr. Harper told the jury that at no time did any of the executives tell staffing companies there was a final contract with law enforcement to sell the software. While the execs did say they were negotiating a contract—which was true—they did not tell staffing companies they had officially signed a contract with law enforcement agencies.
Following the FBI raid of IRP Solutions Corporation in February 2005, the FBI office in Denver still seemed to consider the case to be a civil matter. In August 2005, Special Agent Richard C. Powers and Supervisory Special Agent Jean M. Andersen wrote to one of the companies that had initiated legal action against IRP. The agents wrote that they felt “this case would best be handled civilly.”
Despite this fact, various attorneys and law firms continued to request further criminal investigations, accusing the executives of not having a legitimate business or software. It took two years before the criminal case reached a grand jury.
In 2007, a grand jury found no grounds to indict as the allegations that IRP Solutions was not a legitimate company with legitimate software was ultimately disproved—IRP was, in fact, a legitimate practice and its CILC software was fully tested. After the failure to indict, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch alleged different charges that apparently had not been cited in the initial warrants.
On February 9, 2005, 21 federal agents raided IRP Solutions Corporation and its 20 employees for alleged wrongdoing. The FBI presented a warrant stating that IRP Solutions and its six executives were being accused of mail and wire fraud.
The company, which was established in 2003 to develop software for law enforcement agencies, previously had become engaged with agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and NYPD to make modifications to the software. Although no contracts had been drawn up, IRP began working on software non-contractually to meet the needs of state and federal law enforcement.
In order to meet the increased demand for software development, IRP began to explore the option of using staffing agencies, which act as liaisons between employers (like IRP) and often temporary employees. Staffing agencies initially pay employees or “contractors” for the hours he or she bills and then collect a fee that covers the pay rate to the contractor as well as the profit to the agency. Thus, the agency is usually reimbursed by the hiring client.
In this case, IRP was the hiring client that sought out the help of staffing agencies. While several agencies considered IRP a financial risk and did not team up with the company, several more chose to accept that risk and executed contracts with IRP.
Fraud or Injustice: Black-Owned Software Company Brought Down by Federal Government
November 5, 2012 | Filed under: Commentary | Posted by: Victor Trammell
A black-owned computer technology company called IRP Solutions based in Colorado Springs, Colorado was formerly what appeared to be a promising software development company looking to expand its base. Gary Walker (pictured left) is one of the company’s founders.
Along with four other black men, Walker conceptualized and worked on a vision to build IRP Solutions into a successful business that would compete fairly against the Lockheed Martins and IBMs of the world.
As a black man pursuing a professional degree and career, it is inspiring to see other educated black men pursue their dreams. It is also a rare feat for black-owned businesses that start small in industries other than music and fashion to become multi-million dollar entities gainfully respected in the corporate world.
I fully support and applaud such efforts because they inspire a new generation to do something our race is not normally known for doing.
However, in some fields of business, it may not be a good idea for blacks to dream big. That is only true if you hold the cynicist’s mind. IRP Solutions was given a terminal blow to its existence from the federal government.
This case may very well justify such cynicism, which is fueled by the deep-seeded racism in America to this day. Beginning in 2002 for reasons unknown, the FBI’s offices in Colorado began investigating IRP Solutions and six executives that ran the company.
Gary Walker, David Banks, Demetrius Harper, Clinton Stewart, and Kendrick Barnes are black. The sixth executive, David Zirpolo is white. The software developed by IRP specialized in investigative case management purposes, which is a function relied upon by various law enforcement agencies.
The primary goal of this company was to contract with big law enforcement agencies in order to help them advance their methods of drawing links between people and cases more effectively. Sounds like a good idea for a firm with a great product operating for the commendable cause of better law enforcement, right? Wrong.
In 2005, IRP Solutions’ offices in Colorado Springs were raided by the F.B.I. They confiscated software codes and other sensitive information. For reasons unclear, the agency also probed into the bank records of the executives’ family members. Agents then probed into the personal records of members of the Colorado Springs Fellowship Church, which is where the IRP executives attended service regularly.
Why would such an extreme action be carried out by what most people believe is a responsible federal law enforcement agency? In 2009, all six executives were indicted on multiple federal counts of fraud. In October 2011, Gary Walker and his business partners were found guilty. They are all serving sentences around 10 years and are working on appealing their convictions.
After researching the case by reading over documentation sent to me by an advocacy group called A Just Cause, I saw that at at some point IRP began contracting with temporary staffing agencies to perform the labor to develop the software.
However, when the software did not sell up to company standards, IRP was not able to pay its debt to the staffing companies. During a telephone interview with Gwendolyn Solomon (an attorney representing four of the IRP executives on their appeal), I began to suspect that this case should have never resulted in a federal investigation, let alone a criminal trial. “Typically something like this would have resulted in a civil case,” Solomon stated.
Solomon also told me: “Cases like this happen all the time and they are settled out of court, or the companies being sued end up filing for bankruptcy.” Matthew Kirsch, a U.S. Attorney in Colorado who led the prosecution of this case could not be reached for comment. Here is a link showing a video of supporters of Gary Walker and his associates: http://archive.org/details/dom-105068-ajustcause-episode3-irpsoluti The video was produced by A Just Cause, a advocacy group assisting with the appeals in this case.
Six IT professionals, five black and one white, had a dream of developing law enforcement software that would assist local, state, and federal agencies in sharing information. They built a small company that concentrated on developing a software application called CILC, which stands for Case Investigative Life Cycle. This software was developed to assist law enforcement in investigating a case through to prosecution. The necessity of this type of software was overly apparent as the government indicated the main reason 9/11 was able to occur was because of the inability of government agencies to share information.
Unfortunately for these six men (the IRP-6), their patriotic love for their country was rewarded with 7 to 11 year sentences in federal prison. On February 9th 2005, IRP Solutions (an 18 employee black owned company in Colorado Springs, Colorado) was raided by over twenty FBI agents. The FBI received a subpoena on the basis that IRP Solutions had “purported” software. In other words, the FBI alleged that IRP Solutions did not actually have software at all.
Coincidentally, the raid of IRP Solutions occurred a few days after the FBI had to explain at Congressional hearings why they wasted $400 million of the taxpayer’s money developing law enforcement software that did not work. The FBI was embarrassed in front of the whole world as being incompetent and wasteful.
During the raid at IRP Solutions the FBI attempted to herd all the employees into one room, while they went about imaging all of the company’s computers. The subpoena indicated that they were there for financial records, but oddly enough they left the financial records in the middle of the floor and opted to spend a day’s worth of time seeing what information they could retrieve from IRP Solution’s intellectual property.
Why would the FBI question whether IRP Solutions had real software when Police Technology Magazine reported on the functionality of IRP Solution’s Law Enforcement Software, CILC?
How does such a strange turn of the events come about for six highly intelligent, (some of whom were ex-military men) that never committed a crime before? These six men, who attended the same church for over 20 years, were competing with global giants, such as IBM, Deloitte, and Lockheed Martin for government contracts that were literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars, scaling into the billions.
IRP Solutions had a ‘secret sauce’ that the global behemoths did not. CILC was the brainchild of computer scientist Gary Walker who spent nine years developing law enforcement software previous to starting IRP solutions. He worked diligently with local agencies to understand the day-to-day processes of investigations all the way through to prosecution. CILC was software that was designed to work in accord with the daily procedures and tasks of law enforcement officials.
The large global companies that competed with IRP solutions develop their software from their own interpretations of how things should be done. So one company, IRP solutions, designed software around the daily operations of their users, while the other companies built software from the basis of ‘do it how we say do it’.
The result was that the Department of Homeland Security, Philadelphia Police Department, and New York Police Department advised large companies to partner with IRP solutions. What an insult! After numerous attempts to steal the software, other methods were applied.
The six executives that ran IRP Solutions (the IRP-6) are currently in federal prison in Florence, Colorado serving sentences ranging from 7 to 11 years for mail and wire fraud. The debt that IRP Solutions owed to staffing companies was used as a guise to eliminate competition and jail six innocent men.
The IRP-6 are fighting their unjust conviction with an appeal. They are being assisted by a nonprofit agency for the wrongfully convicted, A Just Cause. You can learn more about these six men at freetheirp6.org, you can like their Facebook page at Free the IRP6 and you can view many interviews on their YouTube channel freetheirp6.
Platinum producer and son of the late Roger Troutman, Larry Gates, has supported the IRP-6 by collaborating to produce a song and Music Video, ‘IRP-6 Needs Justice’ . The original song was inspired by the wrongful conviction of the six executives at IRP-Solutions and can be viewed on YouTube.
H.A. Jabar is the Founder and CEO of Jabar International, a Freelance Writer, a Motivational Speaker, Youth Advocate, and Author of A Well-Made Man: Building the Temple of Self. He is a graduate of Arizona State University where he was an NCAA All-America wrestler and Pac-10 Conference Champion.
In a series of sentencing hearings this week and last week, six former software company executives from Colorado Springs were sentenced to between 87 and 135 months in federal prison on fraud convictions.
They were convicted in October on mail and wire fraud charges that involved hiring 42 staffing companies in the state to test software for law enforcement, then left $5.1 million in unpaid charges from the company.
The men lied to vendors about government contracts and never had any income to pay the staffing charges, prosecutors said.
David A. Banks and Gary L. Walker were sentenced to 135 months each; Demetrius K. Harper, Clinton A. Stewart and David A. Zirpolo received 121 months each. Kendrick Barnes received 87 months.
They also were ordered to pay restitution to the staffing companies they defrauded.
Prosecutors said the executives lied to the companies to provide and pay employees to test software. The men were indicted in 2009.
Members of Colorado Springs Fellowship Church have protested the indictment and conviction. David Banks’ mother is the pastor there.
The software involved in the case was designed for law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the New York Police Department. But the contracts the six alleged to have did not exist, prosecutors said.
“The sentences handed down to these defendants appropriately reflects the seriousness of the specific crimes they committed,” said James Yacone. agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver office, said in a statement. “The number of victims and amount of loss were significant. Hopefully this will serve as a deterrent to others contemplating such crimes in the future.”
Weeks after six members of a predominantly black church in Colorado Springs were convicted of wire fraud by a federal jury, the church’s pastor continues to assert their innocence.
Pastor Rose Banks renewed claims that federal authorities unfairly targeted members of Colorado Springs Fellowship Church, alleging the prosecutions were tainted by racism and unfair tactics.
“I think at this point, we’re disillusioned with the system itself,” said Banks, whose son, David Banks, and son-in-law, Gary Walker, are among those convicted in a scheme that authorities say netted them $5 million.
The six face up to 20 years in prison and a $10 million fine. They are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14.
Rose Banks’ daughter, LaWanna Clark, received a six-month sentence after a related perjury conviction in 2010.
The criminal case focused on the business dealings of a fledgling software company called IRP Solutions.
With offices just down the street from the church, and an employee roster rounded out by church members, the company said it was close to a series of lucrative deals when it was raided by FBI agents in February 2005.
A 2009 grand jury indictment alleged the company was peddling sham software while bilking staffing companies it relied upon to supply labor. The men profited by submitting phony work orders on nonexistent contracts, the indictment said.
The men countered they had accrued “normal business debt” while pursuing big-dollar contracts for software designed to help law enforcement agencies manage their investigative files and reports.
One sale could have paid the company’s debts, said Cliff Walker, an IRP executive, who said one potential payout approached $100 million.
Cliff Walker, who wasn’t charged, said the $5 million went to employees, consultants and contractors, not IRP executives. Drained of resources, the men defended themselves at trial after concluding their government-appointed attorneys had sided against them, Rose Banks said.
“If they’re going to run with $5 million, they would have done it by now,” she said.
Rose Banks and her supporters say the government investigators singled out company officials who belonged to the church, located at 451 Windchime Place off East Woodmen Road. The government also appeared focused on tying the church itself to wrongdoing, they say.
According to Banks, government investigators obtained church banking records in 2007 without subpoenas, a claim that forms the basis for a federal lawsuit still pending in U.S. District Court.
“You just don’t bring a church into it unless you have grounds for it, and (an assistant U.S. attorney) didn’t have grounds for it,” she said. The church wasn’t accused of participating in the alleged scheme.
Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, has denied that racism played a role in the prosecutions. The company’s arguments that federal agents exceeded their lawful authority were dismissed by a federal judge, who permitted the government to use the disputed financial records at trial.
Pastor Banks — who believes that she too was an investigative target — said the legal trouble began when a small, black-owned business thrust itself into competition with much larger, and more powerful, corporations.
Money interests and racism tilted the court system against the men, she said.
Those arguments are likely familiar to worshippers at Colorado Springs Fellowship Church. Rose Banks said the legal saga was discussed at weekly briefings to the church members, and sometimes figured into sermons.
“If I’m preaching on Sunday morning and my message deals with anything referencing justice, that may come up,” Banks said.
Rose Banks founded the nondenominational church in 1981 when she and her husband took over a Bible study group hosted while he was stationed with the military in Bamberg, Germany. Later that year, they moved to Colorado Springs and opened a small storefront church on South Eighth Street with a congregation of about 10 members. The church now accommodates up to 700 worshippers a week, officials said.
Colorado Springs church accuses prosecutors of bias in fraud case.
Posted: 08/31/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
By Electa Draper
Members of Colorado Springs Fellowship say federal prosecutors have wrongly involved their church in a case in which the pastor’s son and other congregants stand accused of defrauding dozens of Colorado employment companies of millions of dollars.
The pastor and congregants have questioned whether the case was motivated by religious bigotry and racial prejudice.
However, federal prosecutors investigating David Banks, the 42-year-old son of Pastor Rose Banks, said clerical collars had nothing to do with it. They were after white-collar criminals.
“This prosecution has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with race,” said U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Jeff Dorschner.
Nevertheless, the church filed an “abuse of process” claim against the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver and is asking for $75 million in damages for “vindictive” pursuit of the church and harm to the pastor’s reputation.
During the fraud investigation of David Banks’ software development business IRP Solutions Corp., church bank records and its members’ bank records and religious diaries were wrongfully seized, church board members said.
“I felt like they raped us,” Rose Banks said.
Neither she nor the church has been charged in the case, David Banks said, yet the prosecution focused much of the grand jury proceedings on the nondenominational church she founded in 1981, which has grown to 600 or 700 members.
“You have millions of dollars missing, and you have to find out where it went,” Dorschner said. “All records were lawfully seized.”
Churchwomen, in what looked like Sunday best, twice braved scorching heat to protest outside the federal building in downtown Denver against what they consider unfair treatment of the church.
Fellowship member Ethel Lopez called the government’s actions against the church “unbelievable” and “mind-boggling.”
Church members, Dorschner said, have a right to protest. “We respect that. But it’s a complex case. They might not know all that’s been going on.”
After six years of investigation, David Banks, who is IRP’s chief operating officer, and five others are set to stand trial in January for allegedly defrauding 46 temporary-placement or staffing companies in Denver and across the state between 2002 and 2005.
David Banks and two others indicted also serve on the Fellowship board.
Payments questioned
In June 2009, a grand jury handed down a 25-count indictment charging the defendants with federal mail and wire fraud because they mailed allegedly false invoices.
The alleged fraud totaled more than $5 million, paid by companies that placed temp workers with IRP Solutions. The workers included many that IRP and related firms had specifically identified as the software engineers, security guards and other qualified temps they needed to help them develop their product.
The placement companies also offered payroll service for these workers, generating the temps’ paychecks and thus advancing tens of thousands of dollars to IRP to pay a few dozen workers. But IRP then didn’t reimburse the companies for the payrolling.
When one staffing company would cut off services because it wasn’t getting reimbursed for paychecks or paid for services, IRP would find another.
However, David Banks said, the unpaid invoices were just overdue business debts, not a federal crime.
Court documents indicate that some employees were working for, and getting paid by, more than one staffing company for the same periods of work at IRP — apparent double-dipping in the same work period.
David Banks and other IRP executives, including some of his co-defendants, were among those who submitted time cards as temp workers to be paid by staffing companies.
Some paychecks were then deposited into personal bank accounts, but some were deposited into IRP accounts and others into church accounts, according to investigators. Investigators noted that many temp workers were members of Colorado Springs Fellowship.
The implication that the church was involved in a kickback scheme or money laundering is “absurd,” said Sam Thurman, who handles public relations for the church and IRP, and is on the church board. Some church members simply sign over checks to the church as a donation, he said.
“The FBI raided IRP Solutions (in February 2005) with 20-plus armed agents where their actions and language communicated a clear racial bias against the primarily African-American company,” IRP officials said in a recently released statement. “The only white executive in the company, Mr. David Zirpolo, never received a search of his person or his belongings and was simply allowed to leave with his laptop and documents, while the African-American personnel were corralled and forced into the cafeteria.”
Zirpolo is one of the six indicted, along with Demetrius K. Harper, Gary L. Walker, Clinton A. Stewart and Kendrick Barnes.All are church members.
Law-enforcement aid
Banks said the case is doubly strange because IRP’s software is meant to assist law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the New York Police Department, with case management.
“This was no scam,” Thurman said.
IRP was pursuing contracts with federal agencies potentially worth hundreds of millions that would have enabled it to pay its debts, David Banks said, but the process took too long and the company overextended itself. Nevertheless, Banks said, IRP is a legitimate business with a real product.
The FBI initially tried to show that IRP was just a front for this payroll scheme, but it couldn’t, because the software exists, Thurman said.
The indictment states that defendants falsely represented to staffing companies that they “had large current or impending contracts with one or more large government agencies.”
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
The First Lady, Michelle Obama, delivers the commencement address to graduates of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Academic Magnet High School for Health Sciences and Engineering at Historic Pearl High in Nashville, TN on May 18 at 1:00 PM. The school serves approximately 1,200 students in grades 7 through 12 with a curriculum that emphasizes mathematics and science. Housed in the historic Pearl High School building, MLK is consistently ranked among the best public schools in the nation for its academic rigor and high graduation rate.
President Obama came to Morehouse College, the alma mater of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Sunday to tell graduates, 50 years after Dr. King’s landmark “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, that “laws, hearts and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks like you can serve as president of the United States.”
The president tied Dr. King’s journey to his own, speaking in forthright and strikingly personal terms about his struggles as a young man with an absent father, a “heroic single mother,” supportive grandparents and the psychological burdens of being black in America.
“We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices,” Mr. Obama said. “I have to say, growing up, I made quite a few myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down.”
“But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses,” the president told the 500 or so graduates, who greeted him enthusiastically.
“Along with collective responsibilities, we have individual responsibilities,” Mr. Obama added. “There are some things, as black men, we can only do for ourselves.”
Senior Profiles
Anre Washington
Betesegaw Tadele
Nathaniel Goulbourne
Reginald Sharpe
Georgia Father and Son Graduate Together from Morehouse College
Published on May 19, 2013
Two men named Dorian Joyner graduated on Sunday from Morehouse College in Georgia. They are a father and son who have supported each other as classmates and family.
Dorian Joyner Sr., 46, was a student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College in 1988 when he decided to take some time off from school to pursue a career opportunity in computers. Over the next 20 years, he worked as a senior analyst in data and finance for several major corporations, including a large law firm.
After growing more and more interested in law, he went back to school in 2006 to get an associate’s degree in paralegal studies to make sure he really loved law before investing time and money in law school.
In 2010, Joyner Sr. approached his son to tell him about his decision to go back to Morehouse.
“I just told him to repeat the question one more time and repeat the answer one more time because I thought I heard a different answer,” Dorian Joyner Jr., 23, told ABCNews.com with a laugh. “I thought he was coming to visit friends. He was coming back as a student.”
The two were never in the same class, but shared some of the same teachers. Joyner Sr. chuckled as he recalled teachers doing a double-take when they saw that they had a Dorian Joyner in their class when they had previously taught one of a different age.
“When we saw each other, we’d greet each other, talk to each other and see how the other was doing in classes,” Joyner Jr. said. “Sometimes, people would walk past us when we were talking and say, ‘Wow, you two look just alike.’”
“The only thing he doesn’t do is say, ‘Dad,’ on campus. He’ll call me Dorian,” Joyner Sr. said.
Joyner Sr. said that on campus, he fit in by dressing like the other guys and carrying his backpack. He said that most students kept their distance from “the old guy” for the first few months of each semester until after the first group project, when he realized how he excelled in presentations from all of his work experience. Then, they flocked to be in his group.
Their roles were reversed, with Joyner Jr. keeping a watchful eye on his father at school.
“He acts like he’s my father on campus,” Joyner Sr. said. “He’ll say, ‘Did you get your class? Did you register?’ He makes sure to check up on everything.”
On Sunday, both donned caps and gowns to graduate with a mutual pride in each other.
“I’m definitely proud of him,” Joyner Jr. said. “I’m proud of him as a man to go back and fulfill a degree. A lot of people his age have a family, have a career and really don’t have the time or finance to go back to school. The fact that he took the opportunity to find financing and time to go back to school while maintaining a social life and a family is very astounding. That’s hard to do.”
“It’s just going to be an exciting time all around,” Joyner Sr. said. “It makes me proud. I watched him struggle through school and he’s my firstborn, so it really makes me proud.”
President Obama gave the commencement speech at Morehouse’s graduation ceremony.
The school is one of the country’s leading historical black colleges and universities. Alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson, among others.
Dorian Joyner, Sr. and Dorian Joyner, Jr.
President Obama’s Morehouse College Commencement Speech – Part I
Published on May 19, 2013
ATLANTA – President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address during the 129th commencement exercises at Morehouse College on Sunday.
President Obama’s Morehouse College Commencement Speech – Part II
Published on May 19, 2013
ATLANTA – President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address during the 129th commencement exercises at Morehouse College on Sunday.
President Obama’s Morehouse College Commencement Speech – Part III
Published on May 19, 2013
ATLANTA – President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address during the 129th commencement exercises at Morehouse College on Sunday.
Rain poured down on the crowd throughout the ceremony, forcing many in attendance to don plastic ponchos, and thunder rang out and lightning flickered in the sky as Obama wound down his speech. The president stayed dry on stage but sympathized with the rain-soaked graduates and attendees, even noting that his wife, Michelle Obama, would not be pleased with the rainy day because of what it would do to her famous hair.
“You all are going to get wet, and I’d be out there with you if I could, but Secret Service gets nervous. So I’m going to have to stay here dry, but know that I’m there with you in spirit,” he said. “Michelle would not be sitting in the rain. She has taught me about hair.”
President Barack Obama, in a soaring commencement address on work, sacrifice and opportunity, told graduates of Morehouse College Sunday to seize the power of their example as black men graduating from college and use it to improve people’s lives.
Noting the Atlanta school’s mission to cultivate, not just educate, good men, Obama said graduates should not be so eager to join the chase for wealth and material things, but instead should remember where they came from and not “take your degree and get a fancy job and nice house and nice car and never look back.”
“So yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and powerful, or if you can also find time to defend the powerless,” Obama declared. “Sure, go get your MBA, or start that business, we need black businesses out there. But ask yourself what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood.”
RT @RaniaKhalek: Another reminder that teachers are heroes -- PHOTO: Teachers carry children after OKC tornado destroyed school http://t.co…Still A MilitantNegro 8 hours ago
First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks during the Bowie State University commencement at the Comcast Center in College Park, Md., May 17, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
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