Charity Founder Fired After Wiretapping Incident
November 9, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
The founder of one of the nation’s biggest antipoverty charities was fired on Friday, 30 years after he started the organization, reports The Oklahoman.
Larry Jones, founder of Feed the Children, told the newspaper he plans to sue to try to get his job back.
The charity’s board of directors voted to terminate Mr. Jones’s employment “effective immediately” but did not give a reason, the newspaper said.
The firing comes soon after Mr. Jones admitted to the charity’s investigator and to police that he authorized the installation of hidden microphones in three executives’ offices last April. “I did nothing wrong there. … I knew what the law was. … They used wiretapping as the excuse,” Mr. Jones told the newspaper.
Feed the Children received more donations than all but four other charities in America, according to The Chronicle’s latest Philanthropy 400 ranking of organizations that raise the most from private sources. It reported more than $1.1-billion in donations.
See an article from The Chronicle’s archive detailing lawsuits between the board and Mr. Jones.
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