According to campaign finance records, a Los Angeles-based jail reform group named “Reform LA Jails” founded and led by Patrisse Cullors — a co-founder of Black Lives Matter — made payments to multiple figures and organizations linked with Cullors herself — including her own consulting firm, as well as a luxury resort in Malibu.
Reform L.A. Jails is a committee formed to support a 2020 county-wide ballot initiative to grant the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Civilian Oversight Commission with subpoena power to effectively and independently investigate misconduct and to develop a plan to reduce jail populations and to redirect the cost savings into alternatives to incarceration. “Janaya & Patrisse Consulting,” a business Patrisse Cullors owns, received $60,000, according to the records.
The committee’s name, according to the submitted records for the statement dates of July 1 to September 30, 2019, is “Reform LA Jails, A Committee Supporting Jail Reform and Community Reinvestment, Sponsored by Justice Team Network, A Project of Tides Advocacy.” In total, the committee listed $903,003.26 in contributions received, $381,822.09 in expenditures, and outstanding debts of $49,540.13. Of these expenditures, $44,313.74 went to “Bowers Consulting Firm,” whose founder and president, Shalomyah Bowers, appears to be a board member on another non-profit founded by Cullors, “Dignity & Power NOW.”
According to campaign finance records, “Reform LA Jails” also spent nearly $26,000 on “meetings” at a luxury resort in Malibu in 2019. “The payments were made on behalf of Reform LA Jails by a consulting firm owned by the co-author of Cullors’ 2018 biography, Asha Bandele, campaign finance records show,” reported the Daily Caller, according to the records. Reform LA Jails spent $10,179 on “meetings and appearances” at the Calamigos Guest Ranch and Beach Club in Malibu, California. $15,593 was spent at the Malibu Conference Center, a “corporate conference facility” owned by the Calamigos resort. “Guests at the 200-acre resort, where rooms start at $600 a night, have exclusive access to a private five-acre strip of the Malibu coast,” noted the Daily Caller.