Project Veritas: Millions poured into Mamaroneck nonprofit as controversy swirled

In recent years, millions of mostly untraceable dollars have flowed into the nondescript office for Project Veritas, a controversial right-wing sting organization that has made its home in the heart of Mamaroneck's industrial district.

While based in the village, the nonprofit — overseen by its founder, James O’Keefe III — has collected more than $8.4 million in contributions from donors, including $20,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 2015, according to federal tax filings.

Project Veritas’ growth has gone largely unnoticed by locals, but it has crept onto the national scene with its secretive methods to deceive, embarrass and videotape its targets.

This week, the Washington Post published stories and videos outlining the group’s botched attempt to mislead its reporters about a woman’s false claims that she was impregnated by Roy Moore, a U.S. Republican Senate candidate from Alabama when she was 15.

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The attempted sting is only the latest in a years-long national campaign to trick a range of groups from the Yonkers Federation of Teachers to national media organizations and left-wing advocacy groups.

On Monday morning, reporters from the Post saw the woman enter Project Veritas' Hoyt Avenue offices, spoiling the group's ruse and hurtling the village into the national spotlight.

Mamaroneck Mayor Norman Rosenblum, who said he was only made aware of Project Veritas earlier this week, distanced the village from their efforts.

"It certainly has nothing to do with the village," Rosenblum said. "I find it to be very sad what is being alleged that they did. This village will remain the friendly village."

O’Keefe was not made available for an interview Tuesday and emailed questions were not answered.

Local growth

Project Vertias' meteoric rise is evident both in publicity and its coffers.

Contributions made to the group increased from around $400,000 in 2011 to $3.7 million in 2015, according to a review of federal tax filings.

Above, a review of federal tax filings show that the organization's budget grew consistently from 2011-15, in both expenses and contributions. Source: Federal tax filings.

O’Keefe’s annual compensation also ballooned from $56,000 in 2012 to to $235,471 in 2015. Data for 2016 was not available.

O'Keefe, 33, was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, and started publishing his work in 2009 on the far-right website BigGovernment.com.

In 2010, O'Keefe formed Project Veritas in Fredericksburg, Virginia, around the time he pleaded guilty to entering federal property under false pretenses. The goal of the organization, which had no paid employees at its inception, was clear from its website: Use deceptive tactics to infiltrate organizations and create public fervor.

One year later, he made the move to Mamaroneck. It was not clear why he moved the organization to Westchester County.

The group employed 48 people and had over 90 volunteers, as of 2015.

As shown above, in 2011, Project Veritas started with zero paid employees and grew annually to 48 staff members in four years, according to its federal tax filings. It also increased its volunteer numbers during that time. Source: Federal tax filings.

“We’ve got this guerrilla army, and it’s coming to fruition soon,” O'Keefe told the New Yorker magazine in May 2016, from the Hoyt Avenue office. Referring to the space, he said: “This is our base of operations. This is our NORAD. It’s our field operation.”

His NORAD is a faceless white building shielded by tinted windows. No signs indicate the group is based there.

A surveillance camera sits outside the front door, which was locked Tuesday morning. An intercom system patches visitors through to an employee inside. A Journal News reporter who visited the site Tuesday morning could not get inside. Instead, he was greeted out front by a spokesman for the company who offered his business card for further contact.

Dark money

Project Veritas has received an increasing amount of money from donors over the past five years, including conservative-affiliated DonorsTrust which has contributed over $1.8 million to the group since 2011.

The Virginia-based group ramped up its funding for Project Veritas in 2015 with donations reaching $922,500, a nearly 37 fold increase from its initial donation of $25,000 in 2011.

According to the DonorTrust's website, its services are geared toward those who want to keep their "charitable giving private, especially gifts funding sensitive or controversial issues."

In 2015, DonorsTrust gave out $68 million to hundreds of groups, ranging from the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, to nonprofits and educational groups across the country, according to its 2015 tax filings.

The Yonkers caper

Before leveraging its efforts on national media organizations, Project Veritas' endeavors had a local focus.

In June 2016, two Project Veritas representatives hid a camera while impersonating a teacher and friend as they talked to two Yonkers teachers union leaders.

The fake teacher and friend, one of whom was O’Keefe, asked advice from Yonkers Federation of Teachers’ former President Pat Puleo and then-Vice President Paul Diamond on how to avoid disciplinary charges for allegedly hitting a child at an unnamed school.

That conversation led to a 17-minute edited video posted on the nonprofit’s website and several city officials, including four Republican city council members, calling for resignations from Diamond and Puleo. Disciplinary charges were filed by the district and later dropped.

Puleo retired later that summer and Diamond remains a teacher in the district and is currently listed as the union’s grievance chairman.

Twitter: @GabrielRom1 @Colleenallreds