Beard Foundation Audit Finds $1 Million Misused

Some of the worst fears about the scandal at the James Beard Foundation were confirmed Wednesday, when the country’s most prominent food and wine group released an audit showing more than $1 million had been misappropriated, and some of its leading members demanded the immediate resignation of the board of trustees.

According to the foundation, auditors found $284,915 in “unsubstantiated expenditures” by Leonard F. Pickell Jr., the group’s former president, in the fiscal year ending March 31. The auditors reported an additional $371,907 in misappropriated funds the previous fiscal year and $373,251 in fiscal year 2002.

Pickell was charged Monday with second-degree grand larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument. He pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court, and was freed on $800,000 bail. Pickell resigned Sept. 9 after disclosures that funds had been misused. He was not available for comment.

In a statement, George Sape, recently named chairman of the board and a managing partner of the Manhattan law firm Epstein Becker & Green, said, “We were deceived and misled,” adding that in retrospect, “we would have demanded better financial controls and reporting.”

Members of the restaurant awards committee and others, including chef Charlie Trotter, called for the immediate resignation of the board, and the separation of the awards committees from the rest of the foundation. “Two or three holdouts refuse to resign,” Trotter said.

“The board had to have been looking the other way on this for quite some time,” said Andrea Clurfeld, a restaurant critic and a member of the restaurant committee. “Sape is an attorney. He’s been a trustee for five years. How could he not know?”

Board member Diane D. Kern would not say whether she would resign, noting that board members were unpaid. “I was brought on the board because I was very active in all our fundraising enterprises as a contributor,” she said. “A number of the members were brought on board because of their financial contributions.”

The foundation announced it would undertake changes, such as forming a committee to oversee restructuring of the board and hiring an executive director. Trotter and chef Thomas Keller have been asked to be advisors.

“As far as we are concerned, there need to be more than chefs who get awards” working on the reorganization, said Corby Kummer, an editor at the Atlantic Monthly and member of the restaurant committee.

The Beard Foundation, housed in the Greenwich Village brownstone where the celebrated cookbook author lived, was established in 1986 to promote gastronomy in America.

“The thing is not rotten to the core,” Trotter said, “but the board has to go.”