{"id":1790,"date":"2011-05-09T12:01:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T12:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=1790"},"modified":"2011-05-09T12:01:37","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T12:01:37","slug":"feds-step-up-investigation-into-kabbalah-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/09\/feds-step-up-investigation-into-kabbalah-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds step up investigation into Kabbalah Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1791\" title=\"alg_madonna-yehuda-berg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/alg_madonna-yehuda-berg-300x194.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" \/>Richard Corkery\/News<\/p>\n<p>The Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles is  patronized by a number of celebrities including Madonna (above, center),  Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and Donna Karan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>LOS ANGELES \u2013 The feds are stepping up their criminal probe of Madonna\u2019s beloved Kabbalah Centre.<\/p>\n<p>New York investigators subpoenaed documents from the Los  Angeles-based spiritual organization in the last 10 days amid  allegations its founding family treated the nonprofit like a personal  piggy bank, sources told the Daily News.<\/p>\n<p>The family, led by Philip and Karen Berg, has controlled the celeb-friendly outpost of Jewish mysticism for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Madonna and A-list pals including Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and  Donna Karan have been big supporters, especially with the group\u2019s  Spirituality for Kids program, another target of the probe, sources  said.<\/p>\n<p>Son Michael Berg co-founded Madonna\u2019s Raising Malawi charity but was  replaced recently as its chairman after an audit of its failed effort to  build a girls school in the impoverished African nation.<\/p>\n<p>Sources said the Bergs deny any wrongdoing and have hired former U.S.  attorney and Fordham Law Prof. Mathew Rosengart to represent the group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Kabbalah Centre and SFK have received subpoenas from the  government concerning tax-related issues,\u201d the centre said in a  statement. \u201c[We] are in the process of providing responsive  information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Manhattan federal prosecutors, who have convened a grand jury, also have contacted Raising Malawi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re actively cooperating with any requests for information related  to Raising Malawi,\u201d said Trevor Neilson, the Global Philanthropy Group  consultant Madonna hired to restructure her charity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to having all legal issues and inquiries  resolved so that Raising Malawi can get back to its work helping the  most vulnerable children of Malawi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The investigation, which began last year, reportedly is zeroing in on  off-the-books expenditures by the Berg family, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI recently uncovered instances of income tax fraud . . . instances  which could bankrupt several of the directors involved,\u201d wrote former  Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Vakkur in an August 2010 email obtained  by the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have little choice but to cooperate with the IRS and bring down the Kabbalah Centre.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source said Vakkur worked for the Bergs for three months last summer  and sat down with IRS investigators for a recent three-hour interview.<\/p>\n<p>ndillon@nydailynews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Corkery\/News The Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles is patronized by a number of celebrities including Madonna (above, center), Demi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[461,285,286],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-madonna-in-malawi","tag-fbi","tag-kabballah-center","tag-madonna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}