A month after a judge ordered ousted foundation president David Anthony Pope to pay the organization $138 million, the foundation has sued its tax preparer agent for $27.7 million.
The Generoso Pope Foundation accused Robert Castro, and Castro & Company, of Rye Brook, of breach of fiduciary duty and negligence, in a complaint filed on Feb. 19 in Westchester Supreme Court.
“As both a professional tax preparer and a member of [the foundation],” the complaint states, Castro “aided and abetted the looting and fraud which David perpetrated.”
The foundation was created in 1947 by Generoso Pope, an Italian immigrant who accumulated great wealth in the sand and gravel business. It is based in an imposing building next to the train station in Tuckahoe, and over the years it has supported community and civic organizations such as hospitals and museums.
Around 2007, according to the lawsuit, David Pope, the founder’s great grandson, became president. Eventually, he removed great grandchildren Marie-Therese Pope and Ted Pope from the organization.
In 2023, Marie-Therese and Ted sued David, claiming they were pushed out so that he could use foundation funds for himself.
They alleged that David funneled money to Westchester Italian Cultural Center from which he received significant payments; orchestrated excessive compensation for himself; placed his wife and two sons on the payroll for little or no work; and failed to properly manage assets, in effect, looting the organization.
In 2006, before David was president, the Generoso Pope Foundation had more than $32 million in assets, according to the complaint. Now it has less than $4 million.
Westchester Supreme Court Justice Charles D. Wood concluded in a Jan. 20 judgment that Marie-Therese and Ted Pope “presented evidence demonstrating that David’s conduct was willful, wanton, reckless, and indicative of a high degree of moral culpability.”
He ordered David Pope to pay the foundation $82.8 million in compensatory damages and $55.4 million in punitive damages.
Now, the foundation wants to hold Robert Castro responsible for some of the losses.
Castro’s firm prepared the annual nonprofit tax returns from 1996 through 2020, according to the new lawsuit, and served as a member of the foundation for 20 years.
Nonprofit tax records are public records that are meant to prevent fraud and discourage misuse of charitable assets, according to the complaint.
“Castro, either directly or through a failure to take action to curb David’s misconduct,” the complaint states, “failed to properly maintain, let alone grow, the foundation’s endowment, selling off significant assets to pay its expenses and regularly spending far more than its revenue.”
Had Castro accurately categorized expenses on publicly available tax forms, the complaint states, David Pope’s fraudulent conduct would have been discovered sooner and the foundation would have avoided millions of dollars in losses.
Castro did not reply to a message asking for his side of the story.
