Charity Spent $10,000 of $237,000 on Dying Kids : ‘Genie’ Granted Children’s Wishes Last

Authorities moved today to shut down a charity that raises money to grant dying children their last wish, charging that only $10,000 of the $237,000 it raised last year was spent on children.

The rest was used to pay salaries to operators of “the Genie Project,” hire a professional solicitor, buy jewelry, and to rent a car, a videotape recorder and a movie entitled “Sex Games,” according to Atty. Gen. Joseph I. Lieberman.

The hired solicitor received $155,000 of the $199,000 he raised, officials said.

Francis Donnarumma, lawyer for the charity’s operators, Michael and Suzanne Bates, who also ran an Amway distributorship, denied that they had tried to defraud the public or misuse charitable funds.

“What kind of a charity would take advantage of dying children for personal profit?” Lieberman asked at a news conference. “They did send some kids to Disney World, and I’m sure those children and their families were grateful.

“But I cannot help but think of the dozens of other children who died over the past few years who could have had their last wish granted had greed not gotten in the way.”

Lieberman said only five children had been helped.

He said investigation of the Waterbury-based charity, the subject of numerous favorable articles and editorials, began after a consumer who had received a telephone solicitation from the Genie Project called the attorney general’s office to find out if the charity was registered.

“We went over the books and found out they were not,” he said. “Basically these people created a corporation off of which they were living.”

Lieberman said the charity’s officers paid themselves $27,000 in salary in 1984, paid $500 a month in rent to themselves for use of part of their home and used charity funds to buy $8,000 in jewelry from their own Amway distributorship.