Thursday, May 29, 2014

Ten Point Coalition Leader Charged With Income Tax Evasion And Perjury

The Indianapolis Star is reporting that Byron Alston, a youth minister who works on youth crime prevention efforts on behalf of the Ten Point Coalition, a nonprofit group funded, in part, by Indianapolis' crime prevention grant program, has been charged by the Marion County Prosecutor's Office with four felony counts of state income tax evasion and perjury. According to the report, Alston failed to report and pay taxes on income earned from 2010 through 2014, and lied under oath about vehicles he owned.

In February of this year, Alston told reporters that his home had been the subject of a raid carried out by federal, state and local law enforcement officials. Alston claimed that he had been questioned by authorities about $3 million that he had supposedly been offered by Republicans and whether his organization had been the target of any extortion attempts. At the time of the raid, Rev. Charles Harrison, the head of the Ten Point Coalition, attacked the raid as a "Democratic witch hunt" aimed at a Republican mayor because of the group's support for Ballard's re-election in 2011.

A few years ago, Alston pleaded guilty to criminal confinement charges for allegations of sexual misconduct towards women who applied for jobs funded, in part, from crime prevention grant money provided to his organization by the Ballard administration. Questions arose about Alston violating the terms of his probation in 2010 when he showed up at a meeting of concerned clergy attended by Mayor Ballard at a time when he was supposed to still be on home detention from his guilty plea. IMPD Chief Rick Hite came under fire in 2012 when it was disclosed that he had written a letter of support for Alston to a Marion County judge for his probation hearing.

UPDATE: The IBJ adds a few more details:
The organization's purported mission is to help at-risk youth, but prosecutors allege Alston used much of the money intended for the group for personal gain. The organization won financial support from the city via crime-prevention grants as well as private dollars from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
An investigator digging into Alston's financials found Alston received $128,844 from Save the Youth from 2008 to 2009. Of that amount, $45,248 is undocumented as to why Alston received the money. The bank accounts also show cash deposits of more than $56,000 in which the source of cash is unknown.
Bank records for 2010-2012 were not available, filing documents say . . .
“This investigation determined that Byron Q. Alston formed the organization Save The Youth that was suppose (sic) to help at risk youth,” according to court documents in the Marion Superior Court. “Alston applied for grants that were supposed to be used for a specific purpose but documents showed that most of the grant money was used by Alston for his own personal gain.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you think that he will get a pardon and go (back) to work for Greg Ballard.

Anonymous said...

Is this what they do in Ballard's "Offender Re-Entry" program? -Re-enter them into prison, time and time again!

Gary R. Welsh said...

The biggest concern is how close Harrison, Alston, et al. are to the perpetrators of some of the most serious crimes occurring over the past couple of years. It makes you wonder what exactly their street outreach activities involve. The more involved they are, the more youth-related crime occurs in the very areas where they are supposedly working.

Gary R. Welsh said...

And yes, that's a reflection of how sick I am of watching and reading the press pieces the so-called media in this town is constantly churning out for the Ten Point's benefit.

Gary R. Welsh said...

There is one video camera operator for one of the local TV stations who sees through Rev. Harrison's phony façade. I'm talking about the one who will pan the camera down to his hand and zoom in on the big diamond ring he's wearing on his ring finger while the crime reporter tosses puff questions to him.

Anonymous said...

Who owns the Bentley that Rev. Harrison sometimes drives?