LI company to pay $3 million for sham fundraising

A fundraising company that duped people into giving money to a sham breast cancer company will have to pay $3.1 million in restitution, a state judge has ordered. Nearly all of that money will be given to legitimate breast cancer charities from a fund set up by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who brought the case against Lindenhurst-based Campaign Center Inc. and its principal, Garrett Morgan of West Islip.

Schneiderman hailed Tuesday's decision by Supreme Court Judge Emily Pines in Suffolk, calling charitable fundraising scams "among the lowest of the low."

"This decision proves that New York fundraisers will be held accountable when they defraud the public and line their own pockets," Schneiderman said in a statement.

Last month Pines in Suffolk ordered the company to close and permanently barred Morgan from doing charitable fundraising in New York after they were charged violating state laws in a scheme in which telemarketers solicited donations for now shuttered charity Coalition Against Breast Cancer.

Judge Pines decision said that from 2005 to 2011 the Campaign Center raised $4.9 million on behalf of the charity but kept $3.9 million for itself. The charity played on people's emotions to get them to donate money in the hopes of fighting breast cancer but little of the money ever went to the research or medical services, Schneiderman said. Only 4% of the total money raised by company and the charity during that time went to charitable purposes. The charity was shut down and its directors in April agreed to pay $1.6 million in restitution and to never again run a charity in the state.

Morgan did not immediately return calls for comment.