IRC Residents Demand Return of Donations from James O’Keefe Project Veritas Fundraiser

Local Residents Lori Baker and Sheila Matthews are demanding the return of contributions from a fundraiser for James O’Keefe and Project Veritas held in December 2022 here in Indian River County, Florida.

The demand comes as O’Keefe has been stripped of his power by Project Veritas’s board due to various unfounded allegations against him, that have included hostile working environment and financial misfeasance. Project Veritas’s supporters have been heavily pushing back against the allegations and are standing firm with O’Keefe.

Since it’s already out there, here are my heartfelt remarks to my staff this morning.

I need to make clear I have not resigned from the company, Project Veritas, I founded 13 years ago. I was stripped of my position as CEO and Chairman.

I came to the PV pic.twitter.com/NwHivwR1EM… https://t.co/X1lKCnwuif— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 21, 2023

Donors across the United States and even across the world are demanding their contributions to Project Veritas back in the wake of O’Keefe being removed from power by his own organization.

Matthews gave the following statement to Indian River News:

“Vero Beach overwhelmingly welcomed James O’Keefe with a sold out event. James attracted residents from Vero Beach and beyond because he is a successful author of two outstanding books on his journey to create Project Veritas and does dangerous undercover journalism like no other. As the Co-founder of AbleChild, a nonprofit organization, we only asked Project Veritas to mention our organization to their million plus followers of the upcoming event. They failed to do that as well as provide some who donated with a tax deductible contribution letter. AbleChild did not handle the money directly; all funds were given directly to Project Veritas. However, we organized the entire event and it was privately donated by me. We are delighted to report most of our high end donors are willing to go public. We have put out a statement to all those who attended and bought books to see if they are willing to go public as well. So far, we have received such positive feedback. We stand with James O’Keefe. Sheila Matthews AbleChild.org, resident of Vero Beach.”

Baker gave the following statement to Indian River News:

“Sheila and I reached out to all the guests of the James O’Keefe fundraiser in Vero Beach to inform them that we were pursuing avenues of getting their donations back.

We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support for James!

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