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Hello, this is a concerned citizen. As you may or may not know, Swindled is currently between seasons.
I'm taking a short break, but don't worry. Season 3 is currently in production and will be released this summer. But until then, I thought I would give you a little something to tide you over. This is one of my favorite bonus episodes that has previously only been available to our valued listeners on Patreon. It's about hip-hop superstar Wyclef Jean and his Haitian charity. If you enjoy it, there are many other bonus episodes and other rewards waiting for you at patreon.com slash swindled.
So maybe you should consider joining. Okay, that's enough of a hard sell. Here's the episode. Enjoy.
Wycliffe Jean was nine years old when his family immigrated to the United States from the Republic of Haiti in 1969. He spent his childhood in Brooklyn and New Jersey, where he was exposed to the local musicians and neighborhood reggae artists. He began imitating these artists at an early age, and it became clear that he had a natural talent for music. Wycliffe's mother recognized this talent too. She gifted him a guitar, and he quickly learned how to play.
Wyclef spent his teenage years and early 20s writing songs and honing his craft. In 1988, he teamed up with his cousin Praz and one of Praz's high school classmates, an R&B singer and rapper named Lauryn Hill, to form a musical group called the Translator Crew.
After a few live gigs and a couple of demo tapes, the translator crew were signed by Rough House Records, and they changed their name to the Fugees, a play on the term refugee, which is sometimes used as a derogatory term towards Haitian immigrants. In 1994, the Fugees released their debut album, titled Blunted on Reality. The album was more of a straightforward hip-hop record, which lacked the politically motivated anthems which the Fugees would eventually become known for.
Blunted on reality, never really reached the mainstream audience. But two years later, in 1996, when the trio released their second album entitled "The Score", the Fugees became a household name. Songs like "Ready or Not" and "Killing Me Softly" were in heavy rotation on radio airwaves across the country. The album, which was dubbed an "instant classic" by critics and fans alike, sold over 6 million copies and topped the Billboard charts.
There were world tours and private jets and millions of dollars. But despite all of their success, the Fugees would never release another album together. The group disbanded after a love affair between Lorne and Wyclef, who was married at the time, went off the rails. In his book, Wyclef described his relationship with Lorne. Quote,
According to Wyclef, Lauren led him to believe that the child was his. People close to the group have suggested that Lauren's plan was to convince Wyclef of his paternity so that he would leave his wife for her.
But days before the baby was born, the true father was revealed to be Rohan Marley, the son of Bob Marley. After the breakup, all three members of the Fugees would go on to have relatively successful solo careers, most notably Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, both of whom have won Grammy Awards. There have been a few temps at reuniting the Fugees throughout the years, but the bad blood always comes back. At this point, it appears that their hiatus as a group is definite.
Throughout the ups and downs of his musical career Wyclef Jean never forgot where he came from. He used his fame and fortune to bring awareness to the situation back in his home country of Haiti. In 2004, he established a charitable foundation named Yele Haiti, which translates to "Cry for Freedom." Yele Haiti is an NGO, non-government organization. And I just feel that if I started my NGO, I could impact certain projects.
Haiti has remained in a constant state of disarray since before Wyclef left in 1969. The country has been rife with political instability and its economy is almost non-existent.
Haiti remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, with the average Haitian surviving on less than two US dollars per day. The goal of Wyclef's foundation was to provide scholarships and school funding to the people of Haiti, as well as the basic necessities. As far as expenses, we provide water for the people, we provide food for the people, medicals for the people, and we're very transparent in the sense of exactly where the money is going.
We will see about that. What started out as a small operation holding about $37,000 in assets, Yale Haiti would soon find itself responsible for managing millions of dollars and large-scale projects. It's being called the catastrophe of major proportions. The Caribbean island nation of Haiti has been rocked by its biggest earthquake in more than 200 years.
On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic earthquake devastated the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving an estimated 1.5 million people homeless and up to 200,000 dead. Wyclef and his foundation sprung into action. He raised $1 million with a plea for help on Twitter. He raised another $2 million through a text message donation program. And he partnered with MTV to organize a star-powered telethon, which was hosted by George Clooney.
It became the most watched telethon in television history and raised almost $70 million, a portion of which would be donated to Wyclef's foundation. In total, Yele Haiti would raise over $16 million for disaster relief. Wyclef began to refer to the foundation as "Haiti's greatest asset and ally." However, a month after the earthquake, questions began to emerge about Yele Haiti's capacity to handle the enormous amount of money it had received in donations.
Former employees, including the former executive director of the foundation, criticized the organization's accounting and bookkeeping practices. Reports that the foundation had failed to file tax returns from 2005 to 2009 also surfaced. But most damning of all were details about the foundation's blatant mismanagement of cash. In 2007, before the earthquake, LA Haiti earned about $80,000.
That same year, the foundation spent more than half a million dollars on office space, salaries, and legal fees. Not exactly what you would call a sustainable business model. After the earthquake, with millions of dollars in hand, the irresponsible spending would only get worse. Over $600,000 was spent on Yele's headquarters. An additional $375,000 was shelled out on the landscaping around the building. Almost half a million was spent on food and drink.
But it gets worse. The foundation spent over $30,000 to fly Lindsay Lohan from New Jersey to Chicago for a charity event. A charity event that only raised $66,000 in donations. The foundation spent another $58,000 flying actor Matt Damon and other celebrities to Haiti. However, most of the money went to Wyclef or the people closest to Wyclef. He paid himself $100,000 to perform at a charity concert in Monaco.
He used $37,000 to pay his rent for his production studio in Manhattan. Over half a million was given to family for unspecified work, and $105,000 was paid to his personal assistant/mistress. Her salary amounted to more than three times what the program director of the foundation was making at the time. Wycliffe also used $250,000 of the LA Hades funds to purchase airtime on a Haitian television network to publicize the charity's activities.
a television network that Wyclef owned. Meanwhile, the foundation's major promises had gone unfulfilled. It had prepaid $93,000 for temporary homes that were never built. It spent another $230,000 on revitalizing a plaza that never happened, and almost $150,000 on a medical center that was never built. When asked about the foundation's activities, a woman who runs an orphanage in Port-au-Prince responded, quote,
If I had depended on Yele, these kids would all be dead by now. Wyclef did not take the criticisms lightly. He posted his response in video form to the internet. After digging kids up and putting them, finding cemeteries for them, and the mug being overflooded, this is what I come back to. An attack on my integrity and my foundation, Yele Haney. So, not only have I denounced some of that,
I'm disgusted by that. A few days later, Wyclef organized a formal press conference to address the accusations. Accusations have been made about me and about Yele. So my statement is simple. I started the charity with my own funds. Have we made mistakes before? Yes. Did I ever use Yele money for personal benefits? Absolutely not. Now, if you don't mind...
My people in Haiti are watching this, so I gotta talk to them in their own language. Yo, Tani, Tani, tu t'as ici en Cap-Garde, ça va bien? In translation, I have asked, the Haitian people on the ground, of course, is gonna be suffering, frustrated, violence. I tell them that I do not cry for myself, that I cry for them.
The president of Yelly Haiti, a man named Hugh Locke, attempted to shed some light on what was happening behind the scenes at the foundation. In trying to figure out how to most effectively use the funds we received in order to carry out our mission, we decided at that time to reach out to Wycliffe's companies because we could get a better deal with them than we could anywhere else. I would not say that that represents our finest hour,
in terms of transparency of activity, but it was not done with anything other than an intent to be efficient. We did not file our IRS 990s for 2005, 2006 and 2007 until last year. That was a mistake. We should have been on top of it. We were not. We are now up to date with that particular process of filing.
None of these explanations satisfied New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who ordered an investigation of the charity. The investigation revealed that Yele Haiti had spent more than $9 million of the $16 million it had collected in 2010 on personal expenses.
The Attorney General offered a settlement to Wycliffe and two other officials of Yale that required a payment of $600,000 in restitution to, quote, remedy the waste of the Foundation's assets and to agree to a full audit of its post-earthquake expenditures. Wycliffe refused, and Yale Haiti was shut down. But Wycliffe would continue to defend himself. In his biography, he said that there was no reason for him to spend the Foundation's money on personal matters because, quote,
I have a watch collection worth $500,000. No criminal charges were ever filed, but the scandal has not been forgotten. In 2016, for the 20th anniversary of the Fuji's classic album, The Score, Wycliffe participated in an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.
The questions and comments were scathing. In one of his few replies before he deleted his account, Wyclef wrote, quote,
It's so important that you understand that if you full do real research, you will understand that whenever you decide that you are going to do more than sing and dance, you have to be ready for the lies that comes with it. I have never stolen from my people. I brought Haitian pride to my people, and despite what they tried to do, I am growing stronger every day and will continue to do my part, as I can see you are doing your part as well.
As for the Republic of Haiti, eight years after the massive earthquake, not much has been changed. There are half-completed buildings everywhere. The local currency has depreciated. There has been one political scandal after another, and the country remains economically disadvantaged. The country's largest hospital is still yet to be rebuilt, and almost 80% of the citizens of Haiti are unemployed.
The school teachers even went on strike because they went months without a paycheck. But don't worry. According to Wyclef, everything is going to be alright. Right. Everything is going to be alright. The gunman's in the house tonight.
But everything is gonna be alright. So go check that out.
Until then, thanks for listening. Thanks to SimpliSafe for sponsoring the show. Protect your home this summer with 20% off any new SimpliSafe system when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash swindled. That's simplisafe.com slash swindled. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.