CEO Of Redskins' Foundation Has History Of Swindling Native Americans

The Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation—with which Dan Snyder promises to end Native poverty just to make sure he can keep using a racial epithet as a team name—is off a poor start. The foundation's CEO's is accused of bilking Native Americans out of $1 million in federal funds.

In 2009, the Bureau of Indian Affairs contracted the National Native American Law Enforcement Association, headed by Gary Edwards, to recruit Native Americans to work as law enforcement officer on reservation lands. (It's that same Gary Edwards who now runs Snyder's O.A.F.) But an investigation by the Department of the Interior found that the NNALEA spent nearly the entire $1 million without providing anything in return.

From the investigation report:

In the most recent evaluation, OIG found that OJS received no benefit when it awarded the recruitment services contract to NNALEA, thus wasting almost $1 million...NNALEA took advantage of OJS and the contract defects to produce unusable contract deliverables.

I have no doubt that Snyder's O.A.F. will do good work. (I have even less doubt that it exists mainly so critics of the Redskins name can be bludgeoned with some variation on At least he's doing something for Native Americans. What have you done?) But when starting a foundation to help Natives, step No. 1 should probably be "Don't have it run by a guy whose last foundation to help Natives just took their money."

[ Washington Post]