A government-funded community peacekeeping organization championed by Minnesota Democrats as an alternative to traditional policing is accused of diverting over $6.5 million in charitable assets toward luxury cars, trips to Las Vegas, and child support payments as part of a self-dealing scheme.We Push for Peace, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit corporation formed ostensibly to combat crime in a “compassionate” manner, faces civil fraud charges for allegedly violating Minnesota charity law and purposely running the 501(c)(3) group into the ground “to steal its business for personal gain.”State oversight officials filed the lawsuit on Friday against We Push for Peace, its former director, Trahern Pollard, and its ex-treasurer, Jaclyn McGuigan, alleging that they lied to the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and the state’s chief regulator of charities over the course of its fraud investigation about the money funneling operation.
According to the 37-page complaint, more than $6 million of the stolen funds personally benefited Pollard, the founder, president, and chief executive officer of We Push for Peace.
We Push for Peace’s website touts that Pollard, a self-proclaimed “expert in the field of crime reduction,” was often called upon by Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and other Democratic leaders, all the way up to the Biden White House and its Community Violence taskforce, “for his knowledge, voice, presence, and solutions surrounding crime, intervention, prevention and creating safe communities.”
