by Kate Shunney
New York state’s Attorney General announced last Wednesday, September 3 that the office of Letitia James has filed suit against VDARE Foundation, seeking to keep its founding members from collecting or controlling any more charitable funds from the foundation and redirecting any remaining funds to other entities.
VDARE Foundation, which operated a political blog that promoted anti-immigration viewpoints, was the purchaser of the Berkeley Castle in 2020. The group’s primary controlling members have been Peter and Lydia Brimelow, who live in Berkeley Springs with their family.
The Brimelows announced last year that they had shut down VDARE and its website in response to ongoing legal and financial troubles, including actions by the New York Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the financial oversight of the group.
VDARE was originally incorporated in New York as VDARE Foundation, Inc., a New York charitable not-for-profit corporation by founder Peter Brimelow.
AG James has alleged that Peter and Lydia Brimelow have violated “the laws governing charitable not-for-profit corporations and their fiduciaries” by using VDARE Foundation funds for personal gain and have not complied with reporting and best practices for deciding the use of charitable funds under their control.
“At the time that VDARE ceased operations, it had conveyed over $1.7 million in cash and real estate assets to an out-of-state not-for-profit run by Lydia Brimelow,” the Attorney General alleged in her September 3 lawsuit filing.
Peter Brimelow has said James has targeted his organization and work unfairly, and this lawsuit continues that effort with the added emphasis on the couple’s personal finances and the ownership of the castle.
“What new in these charges is that James is clearly not content with closing the website, liquidating the VDARE foundation and bankrupting us personally — she also wants to seize the Castle itself,” he said in an email statement.
Brimelow noted the Berkeley Castle, which VDARE purchased in 2020, is now held by a separate entity — in order to put distance between the defunct political blog and the historic landmark.
“As you know, the Castle was spun off and is now owned by a separate West Virginia charity, with a separate board containing Berkeley Springs people. We originally did this because preserving a local icon is a completely different charitable purpose from that of educating Americans about what I happen to think is the post-1965 immigration disaster. We wanted people to be able to support the one without necessarily endorsing the other. Stopping the Castle from falling down is surely a non-partisan issue on which everyone can agree,” he wrote.
Court asserts financial schemes
Court documents say that VDARE was originally formed in December of 1999 as The Lexington Research Institute, Ltd., then changed its name to VDARE in 2006.
VDARE operated a website that published content from multiple writers, all centered around the subject of American immigration and its impact on racial and cultural identity in this country. The group was widely known as promoting white supremacist ideology.
AG James alleges that the board of directors for VDARE have “consisted entirely of relatives of VDARE’s founder Peter Brimelow or his close friends,” resulting in a lack of independent charitable oversight for the corporation.
The new 53-page lawsuit against VDARE and the Brimelows details a sequence of transactions in which the charitable foundation of VDARE paid compensation to Peter and Lydia Brimelow for services and space, including in their own Connecticut home, through a for-profit corporation called Happy Penguins.
“Between 2019 and 2022, VDARE paid Happy Penguins at least $1,187,000.00,” the lawsuit states. James alleges that payments between the Foundation and the Brimelows were not reviewed by non-family members on the VDARE board of directors to determine if they were appropriate.
“No inquiry or determination was made at any time by the non-Brimelow directors of VDARE’s board as to whether those payments to Peter and Lydia Brimelow were for legitimate business purposes, reasonable, or in service of VDARE’s mission,” the attorneys wrote.
A further allegation is that Lydia Brimelow bought the Berkeley Castle and its accompanying property with VDARE funds and then shifted ownership of the property assets to other entities, all of which were still affiliated with the Brimelows in some fashion.
The family moved into the castle after the purchase while they awaited repairs to a nearby home that was also part of the property, the court document says. They now live in that residence.
The Berkeley Castle Foundation has been holding public events and tours at the historic castle in the last year, including holiday fundraisers and ticketed tours.
Last month, the foundation received $10,000 from the Morgan County Commission through the Hotel/Motel Tax program in response to their request for funds to repair the castle’s roof. County officials said the historic value and public role of the castle warranted the funding distribution.
VDARE also paid Lydia Brimelow’s father, Joe Sullivan, for business advice through his company Joe Sullivan & Associates.
In July 2020, BBB, LLC and Berkeley Springs Castle Foundation were incorporated by Lydia Brimelow.
In December of 2020, VDARE conveyed the castle and its grounds to the Berkeley Castle Foundation. The remaining parcels of the castle complex property were conveyed to BBB, LLC, according to the court.
Peter Brimelow told The Morgan Messenger in an email that he believes the new lawsuit is intended to bankrupt his family and force a transfer of ownership of the castle away from the foundation organization.
“Letitia James now wants to undo that transaction, giving various absurd reasons, so that she would get the Castle along with the VDARE Foundation’s other assets,” he wrote.
According to the court filing, the Berkeley Castle Foundation began paying mortgage payments to VDARE for the castle, and VDARE simultaneously paid rent to the Berkeley Castle Foundation, with the rent payments $1,299 higher per month than the mortgage payments.
AG James alleges that Lydia Brimelow signed the lease agreements as both tenant and landlord.
The lawsuit outlines how payments between the Berkeley Castle Foundation, BBB, and VDARE shifted over time, increasing rent from $6,000 per month for the castle to $33,000 per month in February 2024.
VDARE then forgave the mortgage owned by the Berkeley Castle Foundation, even though it was not paid in full. A company partially owned by Joe Sullivan purchased VDARE’s ownership interests in BBB, the court alleges.
“The Individual Defendants, as directors in control of VDARE, have looted or wasted the corporate assets, have perpetuated the corporation solely for their personal benefit, or have otherwise acted in an illegal, oppressive or fraudulent manner, by, inter alia; providing excessive compensation and benefits to themselves; failing to adopt and enforce a conflicts of interest policy that met the statutory requirements; issuing illegal loans to entities in which the Individual Defendants severed as officers and/or directors; and transferring VDARE’s most valuable asset, the Berkeley Castle Complex, to entities controlled by the Individual Defendants or their family through a series of illegal transactions and thereby allowing the use of VDARE’s assets for the personal benefit of themselves and their family,” the Attorney General alleges.
In the court filing, the Attorney General asks that VDARE be dissolved as a charitable organization, that its assets be redirected to other charitable entities and that the Brimelows be barred from having any further role in deciding the use of charitable funds received by VDARE.
