Border group's finances a secret

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A Texas firm that manages hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps says it has not been authorized to divulge a detailed accounting of the funds, despite assurances by the MCDC's top official that it would do so.

Maureen E. Otis -- president of American Caging Inc. in Stafford, Texas, an agency hired to collect, deposit and disburse donations to the civilian border-patrol group -- told The Washington Times that neither MCDC President Chris Simcox nor the group's board of directors had given her permission to "disclose any numbers."

Mr. Simcox, who has been criticized by current and former MCDC members for a lack of leadership and financial accountability, had referred The Times to Mrs. Otis, saying she could "tell you everything" to clear up the concerns.

Instead, Mrs. Otis issued a statement saying only that all Minuteman donations have been "securely collected, counted and deposited" in MCDC bank accounts.

Telephone calls to Mr. Simcox in Phoenix, where he reportedly is on paternity leave, were routed to Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair in Virginia, who said the organization was not going to release "any unaudited numbers." She said that an audit will be completed in November and that any release of figures prior to that "is just not going to happen."

Mary Parker Lewis, a top MCDC consultant, has said the audit seeks to establish MCDC as a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization. She told The Times that MCDC would meet "all its legal obligations" in seeking to organize.

In April, Mrs. Lewis and Ms. Hair declined to answer 17 written questions submitted by The Times concerning MCDC finances after several current and former Minutemen first raised questions about money coming into the organization. They also did not respond to a follow-up list of seven questions in June.

MCDC has not released any financial or fundraising records since its April 2005 creation to either the public or its members. Disclosure statements promised to The Times by Mr. Simcox in October and later in April were never delivered. He since has accused critics of being racists, anti-Semites and "a small handful of disgruntled people who have been terminated."

Last month, several Minutemen questioned what happened to donations collected since the group's first border vigil in Arizona in April 2005. They said they had no idea how much money had been received, how it had been spent or why it was being routed through a Virginia-based charity headed by conservative activist Alan Keyes.

Some of them have since challenged claims by Mr. Simcox that MCDC "spent probably about what we collected" to pay for supplies for Minuteman volunteers on the border, including satellite phones, radios, flashlights, maps, portable toilets, thermal imaging cameras, night-vision cameras, computers, water and food.