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Fundraiser barred; state getting $1.2M
By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer
Published 10:35 p.m., Friday, December 9, 2011

A fundraising company that used fraudulent practices to raise money for law enforcement is barred from soliciting in New York state, the attorney general's office said Friday.

Based in Connecticut, Stage Door Music Productions had a telemarketing arm run out of a Colonie basement by a man with an extensive criminal record he had failed to disclose. An undercover agent working there found employees being instructed to lie in order to maximize donations, most of which went to the company, the attorney general's office charged.

Stage Door Music Productions, Inc. was ordered to pay $1.2 million to New York state. The firm's Connecticut-based owner, Robert J. Donato, was ordered to pay $40,000.

Calls to Donato and Stage Door's Connecticut offices Friday were not returned.

"This fraudulent scheme involved fundraisers manipulating sympathetic donors in order to raise money, not for the greater good, but instead for their personal financial benefit," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a prepared statement. "My office will not tolerate the exploitation of generous New Yorkers and we will continue to put these operations out of business, while safeguarding the integrity of charitable giving throughout the state."

The attorney general's office filed a lawsuit in January 2010 against Stage Door. Andrew Cuomo, who was attorney general at the time, said then that the firm used threats and intimidation to raise money when it made calls.

Thomas J. Kershaw ran the local operation out of the basement of his then home on Ahl Avenue, and the attorney general's office said last year employees were told to give false names, identify themselves as law enforcement agents and to tell people records were being kept of who donated.

"The idea is to get them for as much as you can," Kershaw is quoted as saying in the lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Albany County.

Kershaw and another employee of the operation, Edward Bland, are also barred from soliciting in New York. According to court documents, Kershaw has moved to Minnesota.

In the lawsuit, Stage Door was accused of using fraudulent tactics in raising funds for the Saratoga County Sheriff's Officers Association; the Columbia County Corrections Officer Association Local 3828; and the New York Law Enforcement Association.......................>>>>...................>>>>.....................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....37.php#ixzz1g8bITkFE