Lawsuit Alleges Misleading Solicitations By Saratoga Benevolent Association

Attorney General Spitzer said today that his office is seeking a court order to halt a benevolent association in Saratoga County from making misleading solicitations for charitable contributions.

The action follows repeated efforts by the Attorney General’s Charities Bureau to convince the Saratoga County Deputy Sheriffs’ Benevolent Association to change its name. The Association does not represent deputy sheriffs, but for the last 11 years, has solicited contributions as if it did.

"Prospective donors deserve to know exactly whom their contributions will benefit," Spitzer said. "This organization may be deserving of public support, but it cannot misrepresent itself."

The Association’s members are actually corrections officers, clerks, cooks and other civil employees of the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department. The county’s deputy sheriffs are represented by a separate organization – the "Saratoga County Deputy Sheriffs’ PBA."

Kenneth E. Cooper, President of the Saratoga County Deputy Sheriffs’ PBA: "We applaud Attorney General Spitzer’s effort to address misuse of the Deputy Sheriffs’ name in fundraising efforts. Too often, I have been approached by individuals who believed they had pledged money to support the Deputy Sheriffs’ PBA, only to discover that their hard-earned money went elsewhere."

In filing the action, the Attorney General’s office is alleging that the Association’s name misleads donors into believing that their contributions will benefit deputy sheriffs who patrol highways and investigate crimes.

Two years ago, the Attorney General’s office entered into an agreement with the Association in an attempt to resolve concerns regarding the group’s solicitation activities. The Association promised then to use its name in solicitations only if the "deputy sheriff" civil service job title applied to all its members, and only if it told donors that its members were corrections officers and other Sheriff’s department employees but not the Sheriff’s road patrol deputies.

Despite this promise, the Association has continued to solicit using its current, deceptive name and has failed to make the required disclosure describing its membership. The Association is now unwilling to change its name.

The Association solicits by phone to Saratoga County residents and receives, on average, about $140,000 per year. Donors are told that their contributions will be used to benefit the Deputy Sheriff’s Association generally and support "community and humanitarian programs."

The Attorney General’s office determined, however, that 70 percent of the donations are used to pay the Association’s professional fund raiser, nearly 20 percent are used to advance the entity’s activities - such as representing its members in employment negotiations with Saratoga County - and only about 10 percent are dedicated to charitable purposes.

In a similar case last year, the Attorney General’s office reached an agreement with the "Putnam County Deputy Sheriff’s Benevolent Association" to omit the phrase "deputy sheriff" from its name.

This case is being handled by Assistant Attorney General Timothy B. Lennon of the Charities Bureau, under the direction of Section Chief Robert Pigott and Bureau Chief Gerald Rosenberg.