Turtleboy Investigates

Turtleboy Effect: Audit Shows Juan Gomez, Centro Los Americas “Non-Profit” Spent $6 Million Taxpayer Cash On Booze, Puerto Rico Trips, Golf, Jeeps, Baby Showers, And Other Illegal Things

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Last year Turtleboy started to lead the people’s revolution by forcing the City Council to vote to audit the Mosaic Cultural Complex – a radical political group of black lives matter hustlers that used their “non-profit” status front to basically get unlimited city grant money. Their supporters freaked out because they knew that the audit would come back dirty. And it didIt turned out they were not paying their employees, along with a host of other illegal violations, but the city did a good job covering for them by just insinuating that they were incompetent, rather than fraudulent:

“There’s no evidence I detected as fraud,” Stearns said. “There were mistakes made that were caught. There were no claims made that were fraudulent in nature. Any concerns or questions I had, they were explained.”

It was clear at that point that the fix was in, so we realized we needed to up our game if we were going to prove that they were stealing taxpayer money that was supposed to be going towards programs that provided health services for the urban poor. So we filed a bunch of Freedom of Information Act requests to get their time sheets, found out that the CEO’s son Robert Alston (and several others) were claiming to be at work during times when we had irrefutable documentation that they were NOT at work. More importantly we humiliated Mosaic and the city’s leadership when we uncovered this confession from Robert “Boo Shameek” Alston, which basically put the nail in the coffin for Mosaic:

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After that Ed Augustus and Joe Petty had no choice but to hand it over to Maura Healey to have the state investigate Mosaic, because they were so humiliated by this group of morons who they supported in the name of “diversity.” Nevertheless, the precedent was established that if you investigate a non-profit that is run by someone who is not white, this is racist.

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Well apparently the State of Massachusetts itself is also racist because they recently audited Centros Las Americas Inc, which is run by failed local politician Juan Gomez.

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Whose campaign signs make him look like the guy on the back of every pizza box ever:

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And just like most non-profits, there’s a ton of waste and illegal activities going on with the millions of dollars they receive annually from the taxpayers. The purpose was to investigate three main things, all of which came back as bad news for Centro:

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From the audit:

“During the audit period, Centro Las Americas Inc. billed, and received payments totaling as much as $300,004 from MassHealth, for adult foster care (AFC) services that were duplicative and not allowable under MassHealth regulations.”

Basically Centro was billing Mass Health for giving lunches to old ladies and they didn’t have any authority to do it. Mass Health paid it and must have paid somebody else also to do the same thing. So we have incompetence on the part of Mass Health, and corruption on the part of Centro. No big deal. Just $300K in someone’s pocket. No one’s looking anyway!!

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But wait, it gets better…

Centro Las Americas Inc. used $57,341 in state funds to pay for unallowable administrative expenses.

During our audit period, Centro Las Americas Inc. paid for $57,341 of administrative expenses (such as meals, travel costs, and donations) that were inadequately documented, were not related to Centro’s social service program activities, or were specifically prohibited by state and federal regulations and therefore represent nonreimbursable costs under Centro’s state contracts. However, Centro did not report these costs as nonreimbursable in the Uniform Financial Statements and Independent Auditor’s Reports (UFRs) it filed with the Commonwealth’s Operational Services Division (OSD). A summary of these expenses by fiscal year follows.

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Six FREAKING million dollars!! That’s how much they received from the taxpayer’s in just one year!! You would think they would be more careful with the money since they got so much of it, but according to the state they blew almost $60,000 on bullshit:

These expenses were as follows:

  •  Meal expenses incurred by the chief executive officer (CEO) and other Centro personnel that had inadequate documentation to substantiate their business nature. These expenses included $117 of liquor purchased for a staff party. 
  • Expenses related to two trips to Puerto Rico for what Centro calls the Coffee Project. These expenses were for airfare, hotels, car rentals, and other incidental expenses related to investigating the possibility of developing a business that involves reselling Puerto Rican coffee in the United States. In addition to the $9,358 noted above, Centro’s board also authorized, during our audit period, spending an additional $21,000 to $25,000 in fiscal year 2016 to further explore this project.
  • Golf outings, sponsorships, and donations, including $2,500 to the Quinsigamond Community College Foundation for its annual golf fundraiser.
  • Gifts and gift cards, such as $175 of gift cards to a Worcester restaurant, for which there was inadequate documentation to substantiate who the recipients were, as well as $234 for a babyshower gift for an employee.
  • This $57,341 could have been used by Centro’s state contracting agencies to pay for program-related expenses for needy citizens. Additionally, Centro’s UFRs for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 did not provide the required level of transparency regarding the CEO’s compensation.

Centro gets the chance to explain why they broke all these rules and wasted all this money, and they have some of the worst excuses you will ever hear. Seriously go read the whole audit when you get the chance. Then the state gets to respond to each of these excuses and explain why they’re bullshit.

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For instance, they spent all that money on these trips to Puerto Rico for a “coffee project.” According to Centro they did this because they were looking into a “for profit social enterprise.” The problem with that is, it’s against the rules for non-profits:

“Regarding the trips to Puerto Rico, state agencies enter into contracts with Centro for the purpose of providing services to their consumers, and the funding from these agencies is supposed to be used to pay for all the direct and indirect costs of providing the services, not to “create a for-profit social enterprise.” Although OSA acknowledges that it is a good business practice for organizations to explore new sources of revenue, the expenses associated with Centro’s endeavor to establish a business that involves reselling Puerto Rican coffee in the United States does not benefit the consumers in Centro’s state-funded programs and therefore are nonreimbursable under its state contracts.”

Basically these Centro CEO’s wanted to start a business in which they got cheap Puerto Rican coffee and resold it in the USA for a profit. So they billed the taxpayers for the operating costs of going to Puerto Rico to “investigate” the business venture. They could’ve just picked up the phone but they wanted a taxpayer funded vacation instead. And they did it all under the guise that this would benefit the needy people that Centro exists to serve, when in reality it would not.

Here’s another gem – they wanted to raise more money for themselves, and they spent over $50,000 of taxpayer money to put together fundraisers to that will raise money FOR THEM!!!

“Although OSA does not dispute that fundraising can financially benefit an organization, OSD regulations require that fundraising expenses be paid for with fundraising revenue, not state contract funding. Centro did use its fundraising account to pay $1,640 in fundraising costs, but had a net fundraising loss of more than $52,000 in this account; this means that the remaining fundraising costs were ultimately paid for with state contract funds, not by money raised by Centro through fundraising. As to sponsorships and donations, they are not related to the services provided to the consumers in Centro’s state-funded programs, and therefore no state funds should have been used to pay for them.”

Genius.

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And the best part is the $30K that Juan Gomez spent on a Jeep for himself:

In June 2015, Centro purchased a Jeep Cherokee for use by its CEO for $29,000 without soliciting competitive bids. As a result, Centro cannot be certain that it obtained the best value from this procurement.

It doesn’t say who he bought the Jeep off of, but since price wasn’t something they had to consider, he could easily just buy it off of a car dealership that one of his buddy’s owns. We don’t know because the report doesn’t say which dealership that was.

Anyway, Juan Gomez is like, the shadiest dude around. He claims to be a Republican, and solicited donations from them for his failed City Council campaign, but yet here he is actively campaigning for democratic congressman Jim McGovern:

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The best part is that when he was confronted with this picture he said it was photoshopped!! This is the kind of con-artist we are dealing with.

Juan Gomez also runs the Latin American festival in Worcester. And after the annual shooting at this year’s festival (a tradition like none other) he said that it was just a coincidence that the event, which is sponsored by Centro (AKA you pay for it), always seems to end with someone getting shot:

“I don’t know, nor do I care if there’s any criticism leveled at us,” CENTRO President and CEO and festival organizer Juan Gomez said. “The Latin American festival, and CENTRO, had nothing to do with the incidents … it’s a sad coincidence that it happened the day the festival was taking place.”

The Latin American Festival is the ONLY festival that uses taxpayer money to fund it.

Let’s check out his OCPF reports to see who was giving money to him, and what he spent it on in the last campaign…..

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Yup, he spent $375 on a birthday cake for himself!! This isn’t illegal since it’s his own campaign donation money. But a grown freaking man cares THAT MUCH about his own birthday, and that’s kind of sad. Newsflash – once you turn 21 your birthday becomes irrelevant.

Check out who wrote his campaign a nice check:

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Juan Pena gave him $500. You remember Juan Pena right? He’s one of the owners of Mambo Drinks, whose 20 year old son is the club manager who we obtained pictures of illegally drinking in the club:

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Turtleboy has been going after Mambo Drinks hard for the last month or so, and as a result the Pena’s have been making it their goal to shut down our Facebook page and hurt our business:

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This family gave Juan Gomez $500. So how did Juan Gomez repay them? He showed up at the Canal District Business Owners meeting with the City Manager and Police Chief to be the official “interpreter” for Mambo Drinks, and he accused the city of racism for blaming the violence that routinely happens outside of Mambo Drinks, on the owners of Mambo Drinks. Basically Mambo invested $500 in this guy to be their spokesperson when shit hit the fan. They were hoping he got elected, but honestly, he has more influence as the CEO of Centro than he does as a City Councilor.

Speaking of, when Juan Gomez lost the final spot on the City Council to Khrystian King by almost 100 votes, he wasted the taxpayers time and money on a recount he could not possibly win. They had it all set up, and on the day of the recount he decided to withdraw his challenge to recount the votes by hand. Didn’t stop him from continuing his claims that the election was rigged:

He still maintained allegations of irregularities during the election that he said he will follow up on in the coming weeks. He said once all the materials are compiled, he will release them. Among other things, Mr. Gomez has alleged that the city’s new voting machines could be faulty, and that in multiple instances, voters were turned away rather than given provisional ballots. He provided no proof or documentation of any such irregularities Friday afternoon.

Still waiting on him to release the “materials he has compiled.” Oh wait, the only thing he’s compiled are receipts for Jeep Cherokee’s, birthday cakes, and baby shower gifts for his supporters.

Anyway, this audit came out of nowhere, which proves that Turtleboy has started a trend. When we investigated Mosaic on our own we made the state aware that non-profits are money pits. They’re unregulated organizations that sound good on paper because you think they’re helping needy people, but in reality it’s just a way for scam artists like Brenda Jenkins and Juan Gomez to bilk money from the taxpayers. It’s not a coincidence that the state went after CENTRO shortly after we went after Mosaic. Turtleboy’s question is, when will they be accused of being racist like we were? Oh well, doesn’t matter because the race card is no longer believable and Turtleboy has proven once again that we are the catalyst for change. We clean up the government. This is what we do, and it’s a great thing.

 

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17 Comment(s)
  • September 11, 2016 at 4:35 pm

    funny post

  • Don James McGovern
    September 10, 2016 at 10:01 pm

    Mr. Gomez is a pillar of the community and a great personal friend. He’s always there when I need a token Latino to make my lily-white inner circle look diverse.

  • Ex-Employee
    September 10, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    I worked for this crook who insisted on shaking your hand and thanking you for your service every week as he handed you your weekly check which he signed with his autograph and “Thank you!” Written on the outside like he was famous. Guess he is now! I rarely saw the guy because he was always on the golf course except for Fridays (See above). Parties were commonplace. Love the retirement party where they rented the Worcester art museum, a black-tie event. The holiday party catered at a high end seafood restaurant in Shrewsbury St, all of those business (ha,ha) meetings at The Sole Proprieter. I have never seen a business run so high on the hog, not at all like a non-profit but believe me… The cash never trickled down to the workers….only the managers and up! Such corruption, I smelled the rat shit and RAN!

  • Realist
    September 8, 2016 at 10:02 am

    Really TB? That headline is a bit misleading, although there appears to be some type of misuse of funding there. And just for the record, Gomez is, and has been a Republican.

  • Carlos Danger
    September 8, 2016 at 5:58 am

    Who’s on thier board? Investigate them and thier backgrounds.

  • hmmmmm
    September 7, 2016 at 11:51 pm

    “Interest on Working Capital Line of Credit” – What is THAT?

    $10k in one year ….

  • whatevuh
    WHATEVUH
    September 7, 2016 at 11:07 pm

    This is reparations . . . don’t you get it? Leave these poor niggers and spics alone, they have suffered enough

  • SMH
    September 7, 2016 at 10:04 pm

    This shit disgusts me. What is wrong with our country? Just keep giving it all away to scumbags who don’t want to work. I’m sure all the Centro assholes get every other government benefit there is to get, too. Baby daddies and baby mommas sucking the tax payers dry. I work my ass off and I don’t have a 30,000 Jeep Cherokee. Shut down every one of those shit show non-profits. When will it all end?

  • Joe Max
    September 7, 2016 at 9:12 pm

    Not surprising, one just has to take a look at the people involved. Their previous backgrounds too. Now to listen to the neurotic spin they place on this horror-show.

  • Fatfingr Lou
    September 7, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    Non-profits are supposed to have a HIGHER accounting standard than For-profit businesses, but time and again the opposite is true.

    Most Fortune 500 expense reports are scrutinized by a 3rd party contractor before being forwarded to internal management, and Compliance Depts go over them again during audits.

    Non-profits have no skin in the game. Tough shit if that’s a microaggression

  • Margaret Melican
    September 7, 2016 at 3:44 pm

    There once were some that were spending.
    All the money that the state was sending.
    For those cakes and all.
    They better call Saul.
    About new coffee machines they’ll soon be vending.

  • Reddog
    September 7, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    It’s amazing how profiling works so well. Hate to say it but it’s true.

  • whatever you want to call me
    September 7, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    This is a perfect example of why our government must stop funding “non profits”. Let them get funding from anyone but government.

  • Yaya Toure
    September 7, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    You think you can have a birthday without a cake? What kind of animals raised you? You’re a savage.

  • BB
    September 7, 2016 at 11:53 am

    Great job TB!! So is anyone going to jail for fraud?

    • Fucko
      September 7, 2016 at 6:03 pm

      Lol what exactly did TB do to be congratulated? Did he somehow put this routine state audit into motion? I love how you morons all up voted it. I love me some turtle, been riding since before busgate, but seriously? I know I’m going to take a Kevin lynch/bobnmic-esque beating for daring to question the almighty. Commence down voting sheep…

  • Ed Augustus
    September 7, 2016 at 11:38 am

    Let’s not get bogged down in the weeds here. I fail to see how some arcane accounting details should interfere with the good works of this diverse non-profit. Juan, I take my hat off to you and I salute you. God, you’re cute!

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