Leon Jenkins, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP, resigned Thursday after questions were raised about his association with disgraced racist L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling, whom the NAACP was set to honor with two lifetime achievement awards, one now rescinded and the other cancelled.
“The legacy, history and reputation of the NAACP is more important to me than the presidency,” Jenkins wrote in his resignation letter. “In order to separate the Los Angeles NAACP and the NAACP from the negative exposure I have caused the NAACP, I respectfully resign my position as president of the Los Angeles NAACP.”
But questions remain about the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' relationship Jenkins seemed to have with Sterling, repeatedly honoring the Clippers owner despite his apparent widespread reputation as a racist—including paying millions to settle a 2009 lawsuit brought by the Justice Department that claimed Sterling refused to rent apartments to African-Americans and Latinos.
Many perceived the honors as a reward for Sterling donations of about $45,000 since 2007 to the L.A. chapter. The NAACP, a strong LGBT ally, said it is "developing guidelines for its branches to help them in their award selection process." But, according to the New York Times, the national group has serious financial troubles of its own.
The New York Times also reports that Jenkins has a shady past:
Mr. Jenkins, who became a judge in a Detroit district court in 1983, was removed from the bench in 1991 and disbarred in Michigan in 1994 for soliciting or accepting bribes that included money and firearms to dismiss traffic citations, misstating his address to lower his insurance premiums, encouraging a person to commit perjury and other ethical violations, according to Michigan court records.
After a federal investigation led to an indictment, Mr. Jenkins was acquitted. But the Michigan Supreme Court, which oversaw Mr. Jenkins’s work, conducted its own investigation and concluded that from 1984 to 1987, he “systematically and routinely sold his office and his public trust.” The court removed him from the bench, and he was subsequently disbarred in the state.
Mr. Jenkins moved to California but was prevented from practicing law in the state in 2001 because of his problems in Michigan. The state bar has twice rejected his applications for reinstatement, most recently last year, on the grounds that he “failed to establish his rehabilitation from his past misconduct or that he presently possesses the necessary moral qualifications for reinstatement.”
While NBA team owners conferered on a conference call about whether and how to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, USA Today reports that Sterling may well refuse to sell and spend years in litigation to hold onto the team. However, in a soap opera-like twist, late yesterday reports surfaced that Sterling is battling prostate cancer
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