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A prominent transgender activist stole nearly $100,000 from a bail fund she operated, using the money to pay for her closet renovations and her Mercedes, prosecutors in Brooklyn allege.
Dominique Morgan, 43, of Atlanta, was already making $200,000 a year as the executive director of the Brooklyn-based OKRA Project when she stole $99,000 during a roughly two-week period in July 2022, prosecutors allege.
Morgan announced that OKRA, which offers mutual aid and other resources to the Black trans community nationwide, would start bailing people out, but didn’t take any steps to create an official initiative, prosecutors charge.
She transferred the money into her personal account, ostensibly to bail out indigent criminal defendants, but instead spent it on a $19,000 California Closet renovation, car payments for a Mercedes-Benz, purchases at clothing stores, meals and other personal expenses, according to prosecutors.
When OKRA asked her for proof she was using the money for bail, she cooked up bogus receipts for 23 people who were supposedly arrested in Fulton County, Ga., and Douglas County, Neb., prosecutors allege. But an audit showed none of those people had been arrested in either county at the time, prosecutors said.
She left OKRA the next month, announcing on her LinkedIn page, “August 2, 2022 was my final day in my contracted role as the Executive Director of The Okra Project. The decision was amicable.”
On Tuesday, Morgan was indicted in Brooklyn Supreme Court on one count of grand larceny and 23 counts of falsifying business records. She pleaded not guilty, and Justice Danny Chun ordered her released without bail.
She did not respond to questions outside the courtroom, and her lawyer, Jonathan Fink, declined comment Tuesday.
She could face five to 15 years behind bars if convicted of the top count.
“The theft of nonprofit funds deprives communities of critical resources, erodes public trust, and cheats donors who give in good faith,” said Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez. “The defendant in this case allegedly stole bail funds meant to secure pretrial release of indigent defendants, instead using the money for personal benefit.”
OKRA representatives did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
The nonprofit’s current executive director, Gabrielle Inès Souza, alluded to turmoil in a letter on the organization’s website after she took the job.
“I am no stranger to the lack of leadership, accountability and transparency that have plagued this organization. Many have tried to forget past missteps, hoping to forge a path of newness without addressing old wounds,” she wrote. “But in the words of George Santayana, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ And in recent years, we’ve been stuck on repeat.”
Morgan is also the former executive director of Black and Pink, a national prison abolition organization that supports currently and formerly incarcerated individuals who are LGBTQ+ and/or living with HIV/AIDS.
After leaving OKRA, she became the director of the Fund for Trans Generations at Borealis Philanthropy.
Borealis representatives did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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