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Charities bilked retirees they called, records show

Documents show only $110,000 of about $5.3-million in donations to two groups were used to help needy children.

DEERFIELD BEACH - A charity and its sister nonprofit organization that claimed to help disadvantaged children received $5.3-million in donations from retirees across the country but sent only about $110,000 to the needy, according to authorities and documents.

Federal tax returns and accounting records showed less than 2 percent of the funds donated by retirees to the Global Mindlink Foundation and Select International Donors since August 1999 went to charity, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday.

Analysis of more than 170 recorded phone calls from June 2005 showed that telemarketers pressured older donors for money, and were able to get checking account and other information. Some donors seemed confused or hearing-impaired.

Pearl Jones, 88, of Saginaw, Mich., told a Global Mindlink employee in a June 28 recording that she was not sure she had $216 in the bank to donate. The nonprofit group withdrew the money from her account anyway.

Lori Griffus said she told the companies earlier to stop calling Jones, her grandmother, who has difficulty hearing. But Jones lost about $3,000 to the two nonprofits, Griffus said.

Some donors were charged $490 for a "membership." Others paid $49.95 and received a newsletter with word puzzles, the Attorney General's Office alleged in a consumer protection lawsuit settled last week. Some puzzles had no solutions.

Company officials used the payments and donations for expenses such as a $2,885 stay at a Key West hotel and a $301 meal at a Boca Raton restaurant, an examination of more than 700 pages of court documents and sworn statements, along with more than 1,500 pages of financial records, showed. The Attorney General's Office obtained the records after the companies shut down and left the papers behind in their shared office.

Court records showed that Denise C. Battista, who ran both Global Mindlink and Select International, made $630,000 from the two organizations in two years. Lynne Tallman, a director of Select International, said in a sworn statement that she received $7,500 a week for two years although she did no work.

Last week, Battista reached an agreement with the Attorney General's Office to settle the lawsuit against the two companies, which shut down last summer after the Attorney General's Office began its investigation.

The probe showed that some telemarketers called repeatedly for donations, and at times, money was withdrawn from donors' accounts without authorization.

[Last modified January 30, 2006, 00:32:10]