What Will the DOJ Crackdown on NY AG Letitia James Mean for PRSA?

Late author Stephen Covey famously wrote, "You can't talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!" Tell that to PRSA... and now, to the NY Attorney General, too.

It came as no shock to me that newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced this past week that the Department of Justice is filing a lawsuit against New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James (among others) for alleged systemic failures to enforce U.S. law in New York, to the horrendous detriment of American citizens.

The question now: What other laws might AG James potentially not enforce on a selective or even partisan basis?

And given Ms. James’ well-documented animus toward a particular President of the United States, to what extent have selective non-prosecutions of actual violations of state and federal law — potentially occurring unchecked in New York on an ongoing basis — been politically motivated?

These are reasonable questions from reasonable people.

And from this reasonable person, I’m announcing today that I have a hot “crime-stopper” tip for AG Bondi, if the U.S. DOJ wishes to consider it.

I have a long, painful, and — candidly — inexplicable history with the Office of the New York Attorney General myself, in awaiting justice and hoping for a process even simply to begin.

Since May 2021, I’ve been waiting patiently by for these past three and half years — some 44 months now — for AG James to take action on duly reported and as-yet unresolved / unadjudicated complaints (plural) that I formally filed with her office, against the New York-chartered Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

The complaints stemmed from PRSA’s multi-year, copiously documented patterns of repeated financial reporting failures in violation of New York’s Not for Profit Corporation Law, alongside millions in multi-year financial discrepancies and millions in multi-year, unexplained and/or improperly accounted-for losses of member dollars, including documentation of unannounced, retroactive changes to previously so-called “audited” PRSA financial statements.

PRSA’s “audit” chicanery has since been reported (in 2024) to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, viewable online on the PCAOB website.

We know for certain that AG James received my legal complaints in 2021.

As mentioned, one complaint was filed in May 2021, followed by another one in a following year, and then, another one in more recent months… all pertaining to voluminous documentation of PRSA misconduct.

We also know for certain — as of only last year, however (2024) — that PRSA’s attorney of record at Venable, LLP (former employer of Kamala Harris’ husband, incidentally, who has a very interesting history with the firm), responded to my May 2021 complaint.

But here’s the kicker:

Venable only responded to AG James’ own office and without any copy to either me or to my attorney.

This omission left us in Tennessee twisting in the wind for years, as to the status of PRSA even acknowledging the complaint.

PRSA’s lawyer’s response to AG James, printed on Venable letterhead — which we only found in recent months in PRSA 2024 National Chair Joseph Abreu‘s e-mails from his former employer’s Florida government e-mail server — addressed not one single PRSA financial discrepancy or reporting failure documented in my complaint.

How strange!

Instead, Venable’s letter fired off provably false / misleading and what I considered to be defamatory remarks about me personally.

Venable implied in its “Response to NY AG complaint 6-17-21” letter (which was attached to this documented and legally obtained e-mail, below) that I made everything up with “unsubstantiated” claims. But in point of fact, my facts were and remain so overwhelmingly substantiated and proven by PRSA’s own historical records (which I had attached to my complaint in multiple exhibits) as to be irrefutable.

PRSA’s / Venable’s diversion of the NY AG conversation to attack me instead of answering more than 100 pages of attached exhibits of PRSA’s financial tomfoolery tells me everything I personally need to know about PRSA’s guilt.

Nonetheless, it appears AG James’ office accepted as gospel-truth PRSA’s / Venable’s brief response in June 2021, at face value.

To boot, AG James’ folks gave no notification either to me or to my attorney that these remarks by PRSA / Venable had been registered to the NY AG’s office in June 2021, which, again, left us twisting in the wind as to this status, for three years.

PRSA’s / Venable’s and AG James’ choice not to disclose to me or to my attorney PRSA’s disinformation also prevented my legal team from escalating my legitimate complaint — as we most certainly would have considered doing, had we only known of this June 2021 letter from Venable on PRSA’s behalf, sent under apparent veil of secrecy.

Now — in 2025 — it’s clear that even the U.S. Department of Justice perceives Ms. James to be in noncompliance of her own legal duties.

U.S. Attorney General Bondi’s public announcement this past week against Ms. James pretty much signals to me that Ms. James has potentially been just as legally problematic by not adjudicating my valid complaint against the ethically rotten PRSA as she’s allegedly been about not enforcing U.S. immigration law.

Now why would that be?

Why would AG James’ office knowingly and purposely ignore a complaint against PRSA (if appearances indeed hold true about what’s going on here)?

  • Could it be because I cited on Page 1 of my complaint the potential retaliatory misconduct by — among others — a PR educator employee of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, located in AG James’ own state of New York? Is there some sort of political preference being shown? (PRSA’s CFO — also now serving yet again as “Interim CEO” — is a Syracuse alumnus himself who, interestingly, just in recent days, appears to have scrapped his entire LinkedIn profile so that no one can see where he has worked, in what positions, and for how long.)

https://twitter.com/marybethwest/status/1372532266858119176

  • Could it be because PRSA’s then-CEO was potentially willing to go to extraordinary measures to protect and kowtow to PRSA members who were employed by / affiliated with Wells Fargo, Ketchum / Omnicom, Syracuse University, and elsewhere, because one Wells Fargo PR employee threatened to sue PRSA personally if he didn’t get his way to my detriment, mid-way through a Q1 2021 “investigation” crisis of his and his friends’ own making?… (e-mail obtained legally via government open records request):

Additional EXCERPT of above:

  • Could it be because I cited on Page 1 of my complaint the name of a separate employee / “senior counsel” of Ketchum, owned by Omnicom Group, which only recently was alleged by the U.S. Congressional Committee on the Judiciary potentially to have participated in an anti-conservative “cartel” for some time, to attack and stifle conservative voices (of which, mine happens to be one of the more vocal in the PR industry)?

https://twitter.com/PRSA/status/1789009079416783195

Lots of questions! But no answers… yet.

I have no idea if any of these facts are connected to Ms. James’ choice to be disinterested in my 2021 and subsequent complaints.

But for any reasonable person with a brain — and certainly those with a brain in the PR industry who know these industry players by reputation and some of their intricate and troubling histories — it certainly stirs up at least a modest degree of concern.

For me, it seems that PRSA’s overt, left-leaning, pro-Democrat partisanship on display for many years now has sought out favor and reward in all kinds of ways… as PRSA embraces and lauds leftist politicians, figureheads, spokespersons, and cause célèbres, even though PRSA has a written policy forbidding PRSA to be “partisan.” (It’s one of many PRSA policies that PRSA’s culprits of misconduct disallow their own dues-paying rank-and-file members from even seeing… again, more secrecy.)

Take, for example, PRSA’s pro-DEI advocacy campaign just a few days ago.

PRSA thumbed its nose — to spite its government-employed members’ faces whose jobs depend on their being legally compliant — at President Trump’s recent DEI declarations.

According to records, the federal government has been pouring billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into DEI “training” (with $1 billion reportedly spent on DEI by the U.S. Department of Education alone under the former Biden Administration), perceived by many essentially to be — in far too many cases — bastardized, partisan indoctrination programs run by many Democrat-funded front groups to benefit power-acquisitions and retention by the political left, to exclude and eliminate ideological diversity, writ large (among other concerns).

So let’s get down to some transparency here.

I’ve spoken out for years now about PRSA’s financial issues, stonewalling, obvious cover-ups, and heaping helpings of unlawful retaliation they’ve exacted against me, largely on anti-conservative partisan political grounds.

The most notable PRSA retaliation occurred under the 2021 PRSA National chairmanship of Michelle Olson, who certainly has a track record of emblazoning her partisan affiliations and adorations on her social media, from here to Sunday:

However, I have never publicly posted the actual 15-page complaint document that I filed against PRSA with AG James’ office back in May 2021.

Why?

Because, I was trying to take the path of good faith… thinking that I needed to simply “wait it out” for the complaint to receive proper NY AG legal review and adjudication.

For the first two years of my waiting for a response — 2021 and 2022 and even into 2023 — it was innocently suggested to me by other colleagues that AG’s James’ office may be working a pandemic-backlog of cases, and that my patience would be a virtue.

But it’s 2025 now. Using the “COVID” excuse for years of delays and silent treatments has now worn quite thin.

Three-and-a-half years of my life have come and gone.

Each day of those years has brought distress to me, knowing that PRSA personnel and many culprits of documented misconduct have been actively continuing their legally troublesome tactics uninterrupted, all the while, defaming me in retaliation for my truthful reports of PRSA’s financial noncompliance.

With the U.S. Department of Justice now clearly believing that AG James isn’t bothering to do her job on some important enforcement matters — I’m now left with only that same conclusion, myself.

Due to AG James’ communication void for 44 months, what else am I supposed to believe?

Applying that famous “reasonable person” legal standard, it seems that — yet again — my good faith has been entirely misplaced … and even abused.

Just as in PRSA, I went to significant time, considerable personal expense, and tremendous emotional distress, of trying to work in good faith “within the system,” to do the right thing, in service to PRSA members at-large and in service to the integrity of my industry in public relations.

But sadly, the system continues to fail me.

It’s also failing the entire PR industry, thanks to — by all appearances, at least — leftist political shenanigans designed to attack people like me, to stifle and censor our voices in the marketplace of ideas, despite that I have the truth on my side and the receipts in hand to prove it.

So. What the heck.

It’s been 3 1/2 years with no response from Ms. James — and no hope in sight.

My May 2021 complaint to the NY AG is a publicly discoverable document anyway … so how about I just post my original 2021 complaint, right here, in front of God and everybody, and allow PRSA members and the PR industry to see for themselves what PRSA has sought to cover up?

Here it is…

And that concludes this specific complaint filing to the NY AG. There were others, subsequently.

As PRSA just recently deleted all of its annual reports dating back to 2020 from its website — without notice or explanation — it’s way past time for PRSA to come clean with answers to years of financial side-stepping.

Stay tuned:

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