After pocketing over $2 million from car donations, Shoba Bakhsh, founder of “Hope for the Disabled Kids, Inc.,” has plead guilty on the charges placed against her. This is in line with the State Attorney General’s efforts to crack down on fraudulent car donation charities.
Bakhsh was charged with lying to donors and misusing the funds for her own family and uses. Since the lawsuit, her company has been shut down. In the time it was operating, it accepted thousands of cars generating over 2 million dollars. The company operated eight years, and not a penny was spent on the charitable organizations it claimed to represent for the last two. Although, because Bakhsh destroyed all the records from the previous years, there is no telling if anything ever went to the charities.
As Attorney General Cuomo stated, “This individual manipulated donors and exploited children with serious medical needs in order to enrich herself and her family. As a result of her actions, millions of dollars that should have gone to help disabled children were instead spent on department store bills and real estate. As our investigation continues, my office encourages New Yorkers to be generous and informed donors.”
When you donate a car to charity, do yourself a favor and do the research. You want to make sure your money goes to good use, and the one sure way to do that is to pick a great company to complete the transaction for you.