We should bake Dave Coffman a cake!

Keep the fire on these dirt bags! Get em' Dave!

I second the cake idea! Can't you also make Dave Coffman a Friend of Slog? How about the first BFFoS? How about a front-row-center seat at the opening night of Hump?

Hey Mike Jones- dontcha love it!

The other day as this story was breaking here on Slog, I told my wife that Dave and Dan were doing serious investigative reporting.

As a regular reader of Slate (and Salon, which I imagine will soon be all over this story), I would have eventually found out about this stuff, but I am pleased to have been in the know as this stuff first came to light.

Who knew that compulsively reading old issues of "Savage Love" could be so instructive?

Even the Christian bloggers are picking up on this.

By far the best part of the above is the author - one David Neff referring to DS as a "Haggard-baiting lust columnist".

Lust columnist. Me like.

Sigh. Toss a glass of cold water on my schadenfreude. Another round of searching on Guidestar reveals that Families With A Mission is an honest to god 501c3 that is recognized by the IRS to take tax-deductible contributions. Although according to the IRS they are based in Hawaii, so it could be a bit odd that they're doing business in Colorado. Especially if it turns out that their only business in Colorado is raising money for the Haggards.

But that still leaves the issue of having a convicted sex offender heading a religious organization that is channeling dollars to a minister who was busted for hiring gay prostitutes and buying crystal meth. Also still to be resolved is whether the gifts to Haggard violate the prohibition against personal or individual benefit.

Oh well, I can still cackle about Larry Craig getting busted in Minneapolis. Please, please, please, let someone find and release the video tape of him doing the perp walk to airport security.

Sorry. Forgot to post the link to the search on Guidestar that confirms FWAM is recognized by the IRS: http://www.guidestar.org/pqShowGsReport.do?partner=guidestar&npoId=100055794

Can a charity registered in Hawaii operate in Colorado, with a Colorado address? I don't think so.

In other unsurprising news, Haggard's studies are at the University of Phoenix, which is America's most prolific spammer, peddling barely-legit online degrees via hundreds of billions of unsolicited emails.

Odds of meth relapse and cocksucking relapse: 93%.

Cake! I think I smell a task for the public intern.

A nonprofit soliciting funds usually has to register with each state where it is actively asking for money. So it's not that unusual for an organization to be registered in several states.

What is odd is that FWAM has a Hawaii address with the IRS, but all of its officers, and its registered agent Huberty, appear to live in Colorado. And the fact that, according to the Colorado state web site, they "voluntarily dissolved" in February 2007. Based on the notation on the screen capture from the CO Secretary of State site in one of the earlier postings, it appears that FWAM has not filed an annual registration since September 1, 2005.

If this is true, it might not be legal for FWAM to solicit funds in Colorado. Colorado does require nonprofits be registered (www.multistatefiling.org/n_appendix.htm#urs_colorado)
prior to soliciting funds.

This could be due to negligence --I ran a nonprofit in Washington and missed the filing deadline once and got reinstated by simply filing the required form -- but a two year gap would indicate that they were inactive or out of business and only revived to help the ex-Reverend Haggard.

If they were active for the past two years, then technically they were acting outside the law. Usually this would result in a slap on the wrist for a nonprofit, but in Huberty's case it might result in some kind of parole violation. I'll leave that for someone else to discover.

I'm sending a letter to the entity in Hawaii asking for their 990's for the last 3 years as well as their application materials. We'll see what comes back. It doesn't appear to be available on Guidestar and we haven't found it elsewhere on the internet.

BTW, thanks for all these kudos... but it's also Adam and Ary in my office- huge thanks go to them for their help in finding stuff out. They're the real champs as well.

thanks Dave :-) This has been, and should continue to be an interesting issue to investigate...around every corner we keep finding new surprises.

The Hawaii corp does appear on Guidestar. However, Colorado law requires it to be listed as a "foreign corporation" if there it is doing business there. I'm still asking for the 990's and the formation docs.