The Hennepin County Attorney\u2019s Office is now pursuing legal action against Bishop Harding Smith as well as the nonprofit violence intervention group he founded, Minnesota Acts Now.<\/p>\n
Previous charges related to wage theft were dropped after the statute of limitations expired \u2014 with recent arguments focusing more heavily on Smith\u2019s purchase of a Brooklyn Park building with funds allegedly stolen from his employees.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s lawyer has filed multiple documents asking for the new charges to be dismissed, most recently on June 25. The next hearing is scheduled for July 23 in Hennepin County District Court.<\/p>\n
Smith, an Edina resident and Robbinsdale pastor, is accused of underpaying his employees while under a contract with Hennepin County. He was charged with two counts of wage theft and one of theft by swindle before the original case was dropped.<\/p>\n
The county maintains that Smith failed to pay employees the wages outlined by his contract, attempted to hide the actual payment his employees received, and obtained property or services from the county through deceptive means.<\/p>\n
Smith now faces one count of theft by swindle in the refiled case. The nonprofit itself also faces the same charge, with a special agent from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension finding probable cause for legal action.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough the agreement budget contemplated that MAN [Minnesota Acts Now] employees would be paid $35 per hour for their work\u2026most employees were paid $20 or, in a few cases, $25 or $30 per hour,\u201d Inspector Dale Hanson wrote in a criminal complaint filed this spring.<\/p>\n
According to Hanson, the hourly wages were confirmed by obtaining paperwork from the payroll processing firm ADP.<\/p>\n
Hanson highlighted repeated contract amendments requested by Smith, which allegedly brought more money into the nonprofit\u2019s savings account. The final amendment came in December 2021 after Smith reportedly emailed the county \u201cone of the reasons\u201d Minnesota Acts Now was \u201crunning out of cash\u201d was due to an ADP tax that was not budgeted for.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmith asked if there was \u2018some way we can fix this.\u2019 This prompted an amendment to the agreement to add a budget line item of $43,149,\u201d Hanson wrote. \u201cAs of the date of Smith\u2019s email, and because Hennepin County had been reimbursing it at $35 per hour worked by its employees, MAN had more than $100,000 in its savings account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that month, MAN spent $100,000 from its savings account towards the purchase of a building in Brooklyn Park\u2014 identified in court documents as 6301 Zane Ave. N.<\/p>\n
Why refile?<\/p>\n
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced her plan to refile amended charges against Smith the day a jury trial was set to begin, April 27. While a news release acknowledged the statute of limitations on Smith\u2019s felony wage theft charges had expired, court documents identify another reason the case was refiled \u2014 a necessary witness for the state was unavailable to testify for the scheduled trial.<\/p>\n
Attorney Jordan Kushner, Smith\u2019s legal counsel, is asking for the charges against Smith and Minnesota Acts Now to be dismissed \u201con the grounds that the prosecutor has unnecessarily and improperly delayed\u201d the previously scheduled trial.<\/p>\n
In a May 28 motion, Kushner identifies the witness deemed necessary by the prosecution as the previous owner of 6301 Zane Ave. N.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe witness would merely verify that Mr. Smith paid $100,000 to buy a building from her, and the state would contend that was money that was supposed to be paid towards wages,\u201d Kushner writes.<\/p>\n
In a June 12 memorandum, the prosecution argues against dismissal, referring to the building\u2019s previous owner as \u201cS.H.\u201d and claiming she would share key testimony.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State expects the evidence to show that [Smith\u2019s] actions were motivated by a desire to expand his corporation to gain further public recognition and have more opportunity to align with influential people,\u201d the prosecution writes. \u201cS.H. had conversations with Smith about why he was interested in the building and his plans for how MAN could use the building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alleged crime<\/p>\n
Hennepin County contracted Minnesota Acts Now, headed by Smith, to provide violence intervention services from August through December of 2021. The city of Brooklyn Park awarded the nonprofit a $1.8 million contract the following year.<\/p>\n
The Minnesota Attorney General\u2019s Office received wage theft complaints from former Minnesota Acts Now employees in 2023. A subsequent criminal investigation found Smith\u2019s employees were receiving between $20-$30 per hour. The only individuals who received the agreed upon $35 per hour were Smith and his spouse.<\/p>\n
Under the original agreement, Smith said he would pay all of his employees $35 per hour but would not take any payment himself.<\/p>\n
Roughly two months into the contract, Smith reportedly told Hennepin County his employees should be paid $40 per hour. He also requested the same wage for himself.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege Smith was paying all of his employees, aside from his spouse, less than $35 per hour when he requested the pay raise. According to court documents, the county did not approve the requested $40 wage for Smith\u2019s employees but did allocate $35 per hour to Smith for his services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hennepin County Attorney\u2019s Office is now pursuing legal action against Bishop Harding Smith as well as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[36632,37623,98,100,99,109302,109296,109298,109300,109305,109299,91,41770,109306,5800,109301,109303,9,24,63,17110,109295,20077,109304,797,109297],"class_list":["post-285090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-attorney","tag-bishop","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-dale-hanson","tag-harding-smith","tag-hennepin-county-attorneys-office","tag-hennepin-county-district-court","tag-inspector","tag-jordan-kushner","tag-lawyer","tag-legal-counsel","tag-mary-moriarty","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-attorney-generals-office","tag-minnesota-bureau","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-prosecutor","tag-robbinsdale","tag-smith","tag-special-agent","tag-theft","tag-violence-intervention-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}