UPDATE: On April 28, 2023, Westchester Supreme Court Justice David F. Everett dismissed all charges against Ellie Jill Doornick and her co-defendants. He also urged the parties to work out their differences. “Everybody’s going to get hurt in this kind of thing,” he said. “And, the animals that you’re trying to help, okay, they’re going to suffer too, because the people who are supposed to be smarter than the animals can’t get along.”
The founder of Animal Nation, an animal rescue and rehabilitation organization in Rye, is trying to form a new board of directors and has seized control of its post office box and tried to make herself the sole signatory on a bank account, according to a lawsuit.
Elle Jill Doornick of Rye, the lawsuit states, “has attempted to execute a coup to overthrow the existing board of directors.”
Animal Nation petitioned Westchester Supreme Court on New Year”™s Eve to stop Doornick and three associates from taking over the nonprofit organization.
“We”™re all shocked,” Doornick responded in a brief telephone conversation. “Everything they”™re saying, we have a whole different story.”
One of Doornick’s supporters, Joi Muratore, responded in a prepared statement: “These three individuals are engaging in completely unethical behavior, including lying and defaming in order to gain complete control of this organization. Apparently they are willing to go to any extreme to accomplish this. Their behavior is the antithesis of everything Animal Nation stands for; we are shocked and saddened by their actions.”
Animal Nation was founded in 2001 as a wildlife rescue organization, and has since expanded to adopt and care for domestic and farm animals. It runs a farm program in South Salem and has more than 100 volunteers overseeing the care of 500 animals.
It”™s mission, according to Patrick Moore, the president, “is to end cruelty to animals and to promote the health and well-being of all animals.”
The petition depicts Doornick as disgruntled over not being allowed to use Animal Nation assets for herself.
After the organization closed a land deal in June, “Doornick became laser-focused on how she might use the land to her advantage,” Animal Nation secretary-treasurer Laurie Gandal states in an affidavit.
In September, Doornick allegedly tried to buy a van for personal use but have it put in the name of Animal Nation, Moore alleges, “to avoid paying sales tax in the amount of $2,500.”
Moore says Doornick held an unofficial annual meeting with supporters on Dec. 13 and unilaterally declared them as board members.
The number of directors can be increased only by a majority vote of the board, Moore states, and that has not happened. Instead, the board removed Doornick as a director at the official Dec. 18 annual meeting.
On Dec. 23, Doornick allegedly went to the Wells Fargo Bank branch in Port Chester and removed the current board members as signers on its bank account, leaving herself as the only authorized signatory.
Wells Fargo has since placed a hold on the account to prevent unauthorized withdrawals. Moore said he has been paying for animal feed and other essential supplies on his personal credit card.
On Dec. 29, Doornick allegedly directed the Rye post office, where Animal Nation has a P.O. box for receiving bills and donations, to hold the mail for her.
“With unfettered access to Animal Nation”™s mail and its purse,” the petition states, Doornick and her associates are “poised to wreak unimaginable harm upon Animal Nation.”
“Only a court order can rein in defendants,” Moore states.
Yonkers attorney Nancy Durand filed a summons for Animal Nation on Dec. 30, naming Doornick and her board choices: Muratore, South Salem; Lynda Boles, Port Chester; and Andrea Raynor, Rye. The summons accuses them of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and it seeks $25,000 in alleged damages.
Animal Nation is asking for a court order restraining Doornick and her associates from obstructing the organization, holding themselves out as directors or officers, disparaging the organization with volunteers and donors, interfering with vendor payments, blocking access to the post office box and withdrawing funds from the bank account.
