Fraud Pandemic Spreads to Minneapolis

After scores of headlines about fraud targeting federally and state funded programs, the crisis spreads to Minneapolis.

Following a series of high-profile financial scandals that have rocked state and federally funded programs over the last few years, the regional crisis of nonprofit accountability has hit the heart of Minneapolis’s local community safety initiatives.

On May 8, 2026, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a sweeping civil lawsuit in Hennepin County District Court against the prominent north Minneapolis violence-prevention non-profit We Push for Peace, alongside its founder and former chief executive, Trahern Pollard, and former director Jaclyn McGuigan. The state alleges a systemic, multi-year diversion of more than $6.5 million in charitable assets, turning a taxpayer-backed organization into a personal piggy bank to fund luxury vehicles, out-of-state vacation trips, and private business ventures.

The lawsuit marks a sobering turning point for a metropolitan area already reeling from institutional fraud vulnerabilities. For years, headlines in Minnesota have been dominated by massive oversight failures in social service sectors. Now, the state’s legal apparatus alleges that the exact same vulnerabilities have hollowed out the municipal frontline infrastructure meant to interrupt street-level violence and stabilize neighborhoods.

Anatomy of a $6.5 Million Siphon

According to the official complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, Pollard and McGuigan operated as the de facto sole directors of We Push for Peace for multiple years, stripped of any meaningful board oversight or internal financial controls. During this window, the pair allegedly siphoned a combined total of over $6.5 million directly away from the non-profit’s operational mission.

Investigators assert that over $6 million of the diverted funds directly benefited Pollard personally. Rather than funding community outreach workers or deployment strategies to de-escalate urban conflict, large tranches of charitable revenue were funneled into an extravagant personal lifestyle. The state’s documentation highlights thousands of dollars routed toward child support payments, personal tax liabilities, a $1,000 ATM withdrawal at a casino in Las Vegas, and high-end consumer expenditures.

Most notably, state investigators uncovered that We Push for Peace assets were systematically deployed to capital-inject and prop up Pollard’s independent, for-profit business ecosystem. This included transferring non-profit cash flows into his personal car dealership and financing his private liquor store enterprise, Merwin Liquors—a north Minneapolis establishment that had ironically been the subject of city and state public safety scrutiny in 2022.

Under-Perjury Deceptions and Cover-Up Efforts

The crisis deepened when the Charities Division of the Attorney General’s Office initiated its compliance probe. Rather than cooperating to correct organizational deficiencies, the defendants reportedly executed a multi-layered cover-up strategy designed to mislead regulators and tax authorities.

The legal filing states that Pollard repeatedly provided false statements to investigators while under penalty of perjury. In one instance, when questioned about a direct financial withdrawal used to cover his personal domestic child support obligations, Pollard claimed to state attorneys that the money was an ordinary non-profit overhead expense. In another instance, a $35,000 lump-sum cash transfer to a circle of Pollard’s personal associates was deliberately falsified in organizational ledgers as “Chicago Payroll” to fabricate the appearance of legitimate out-of-state operations.

Throughout the investigation, McGuigan allegedly assisted in obscuring financial records, ensuring that independent annual reports were withheld from state registries. According to state transparency compliance frameworks, We Push for Peace failed to file its required annual reports due in November 2025, triggering an immediate suspension of its lawful status to solicit charitable contributions within the state of Minnesota.

The For-Profit Corporate Hijacking

As detailed by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office communication logs, the structural collapse of the organization accelerated when external intervention finally occurred. Recognizing severe accounting discrepancies, a newly elected board of directors moved to strip Pollard of his unilateral access to the non-profit’s primary bank accounts.

However, rather than stepping down, Pollard allegedly launched an aggressive corporate pivoting strategy to hollow out the remainder of the entity. While still serving as the chief executive officer of the non-profit, Pollard founded a series of competing entities, including “We Push for Peace-For Profit Professional Service Corporation” and an independent entity called “Change Makers.”

State investigators documented a pattern where Pollard interceptively diverted active municipal and commercial contracts away from the non-profit and into his newly minted for-profit accounts. Corporate clients, including major regional footprints like Whole Foods—which had aggressively promoted its corporate relationship with We Push for Peace under the impression it was supporting a charitable community endeavor—had their contract payments redirected. In total, investigators tracked at least $930,794 in checks expressly made out to the order of the non-profit that were instead deposited straight into Pollard’s private Change Makers accounts, leaving the non-profit entirely starved of revenue.

Real-World Fallout: A Crippled Public Safety Net

The consequences of this alleged multi-million dollar siphon extended far beyond corporate bookkeeping, dealing a catastrophic blow to Minneapolis’s actual emergency response capabilities.

In early 2026, the City of Minneapolis faced a critical operational juncture and initiated Operation Metro Surge, a coordinated community-support strategy requiring immediate deployment from trusted local non-profits to assist vulnerable neighborhoods. When municipal leaders reached out to We Push for Peace to fulfill its core public service functions, the formerly multi-million dollar organization was entirely incapacitated.

As of April 2026, internal reports confirmed that the non-profit’s offices were completely abandoned and sitting vacant. The hollowing out of the organization by its founders left it with zero capital reserves to support field services, maintain basic community functions, or meet standard payroll obligations for frontline workers.

“We Push for Peace’s former leaders betrayed their basic duties to the non-profit and communities they were supposed to serve,” Attorney General Keith Ellison stated upon filing the lawsuit in Hennepin County. “Instead of helping the community, they helped themselves to millions of dollars… When my Office asked questions, Pollard and McGuigan lied about key facts, continued to misuse assets, and ultimately caused the demise of the non-profit.”

The Shadow of the Fraud Pandemic

The civil suit seeks full structural restitution, the recovery of all misappropriated charitable funds, and permanent injunctions to bar Pollard and McGuigan from ever serving as officers or directors of any charitable organization in the state of Minnesota.

For Minneapolis taxpayers and public policy analysts, the collapse of We Push for Peace serves as a grim validation of ongoing concerns surrounding “violence interrupter” funding models. In the wake of historic regional oversight failures, critics point out that throwing capital at non-traditional public safety entities without rigid accounting frameworks invites exploitation. As the legal proceedings move toward a trial posture scheduled for this fall, the city is left to confront an uncomfortable reality: the pandemic of accountability failure has officially degraded the metropolitan area’s most vital urban safety nets.