DURHAM, North Carolina (RNS) — An unbiased investigation into allegations that the Rev. William Barber had been paying his ex-wife alimony from the funds of his nonprofit, concluded that the civil rights chief did nothing fallacious.
In a court docket submitting final month, Rebecca Barber, the preacher’s ex-wife, alleged that since November 2023, the nonprofit, Repairers of the Breach, has issued month-to-month checks for $7,000 to a joint private checking account shared by Barber and his ex-wife, “beneath the guise of alimony or monetary assist.”
The board of Repairers of the Breach, a 10-year-old social change group based by Barber, employed the North Carolina legislation agency Parker Poe Adams and Bernstein to analyze the go well with’s declare. In an announcement issued Saturday (June 21), the board concluded, “We are able to affirm that every one funds made to Reverend Barber align with accredited quantities, and any transfers made to a private account have been comprised of his personal wage, unbiased of Repairers of the Breach.”
Barber and his ex-wife have been dueling in court docket over the distribution of their belongings. The couple divorced after 37 years in November 2024 after dwelling aside through the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve 4 grownup kids and raised a daughter from William Barber’s prior relationship.
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When mediation to settle elements of the divorce failed, Rebecca Barber filed a movement so as to add Repairers of the Breach as a 3rd get together defendant.
“Defendant contends that Repairers of the Breach, Inc. is functionally an alter ego of Plaintiff and should possess or management belongings which are marital in nature or in any other case related to this Court docket’s equitable distribution dedication,” learn the movement filed in Durham County, North Carolina, on Might 14.
However the board’s investigation discovered that Barber didn’t use or direct organizational funds for private profit. “The story is that there isn’t any story and we’re shifting on with our work,” mentioned Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, chairman of the 10-member board and a frequent collaborator with Barber.
On June 12, a district court docket choose denied a movement by the Rev. Barber’s lawyer, Tamela Wallace, for a protecting order in opposition to Rebecca Barber.
Repairers of the Breach paid Barber greater than $224,000 in wage in 2023, in line with the newest 990 kind filed by non-public foundations within the U.S. That yr, the group had $8.2 million in internet belongings.
The group is finest identified for reviving the Poor Folks’s Marketing campaign, an anti-poverty effort bearing the title and the objectives of the motion launched by Martin Luther King Jr. shortly earlier than his 1968 assassination.
Lately, Repairers of the Breach has begun a “Ethical Monday” marketing campaign with weekly demonstrations on the U.S. Capitol aimed toward difficult the Republican-led funds invoice, together with potential cuts to social safety-net packages resembling Medicaid.
Repairers is planning one other Ethical Monday protest in entrance of the U.S. Supreme Court docket on Monday (June 30).
Barber can be founding father of the Heart for Public Theology and Public Coverage at Yale Divinity Faculty, the place he additionally teaches.
Final month he married the Rev. Della Owens, pastor of St. James Church in Wilson, North Carolina, a Disciples of Christ congregation.
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