[Story sent by Chris Zepeda on power struggles within the Minuteman Project; apparently in-fighting is not new to the minutemen, as is evidenced in this other blog entry]

Ousted Minuteman leader seeks court remedy
Illegal immigration foe Jim Gilchrist of Aliso Viejo
says he was railroaded. Other group members say he’s
to blame.

By Jennifer Delson
LA Times
February 27, 2007

A behind-the-scenes power struggle over control of the
Minuteman Project spilled into an Orange County
courtroom Monday with ousted co-founder Jim Gilchrist
asking a judge to give him back control of the citizen
border patrol group.

Superior Court Judge Randell L. Wilkinson said he
would issue a ruling within a few days.

Gilchrist, 58, a national figure in the fight against
illegal immigration, was removed as president of the
Minuteman Project this month by its board of
directors, which accused him of abusing his power and
leaving more than $400,000 of the organization’s money
unaccounted for.

Gilchrist, a retired accountant from Aliso Viejo,
denied the allegations but said the controversy “could
very well bring an end to the entire Minuteman
Project. There are groups around the country with the
name, but we are the most well known and the most
powerful.”

Gilchrist said in an interview that his opponents were
motivated by “a greed for power and a false perception
of an endless stream of money.”

Gilchrist said all money raised by his organization
was accounted for and that his critics had leveled
false allegations to gain control of the organization.
In court papers, he accused his opponents of hacking
into the Minuteman website, stealing money from
Minuteman bank accounts, diverting other money to
funds they control and stealing 20,000 pieces of
letterhead and envelopes.

And Guy Mailly, Gilchrist’s attorney, argued in court
that the three members on the seven-member board who
ousted Gilchrist had no voting power and, if they had,
they voted him out without a required quorum.

Deborah Courtney, the group’s recently appointed
treasurer, said in an interview that a direct mail
company helped raise $750,000 for the group in 2006,
but that she believes the Minuteman campaign received
only $311,000. Courtney said she and others had been
unable to trace the rest of the money.

Courtney added that Gilchrist “is wonderful at wowing
a crowd…. However, there is the Peter Principle, where
you get to the point where it is over your head.”

Gilchrist’s opponents also allege in interviews that
he used Minuteman funds to promote the book he
co-wrote — “Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s
Borders” — but kept the royalties.

They also said he should not have used $13,000 in
Minuteman funds to defend himself in court against
their allegations. He said the group must pay to
defend itself against “rogues.”

The Minuteman Project gained widespread media
attention in 2005 when its members patrolled the
Mexico-Arizona border using cars, trucks, private
planes and night-vision goggles. The effort drew
criticism from President Bush, who called participants
“vigilantes.”

Later that year, Gilchrist, a former military man,
made an unsuccessful run for a House seat on the
American Independent Party ticket.

Today, about 200 loosely affiliated Minuteman
organizations operate across the country, with members
lobbying local and federal officials to enforce
immigration laws and watching the border to spot
immigrant crossings for federal agents.

Robert Vasquez, a former county commissioner in Idaho
who sued companies that hired illegal workers, said
top conservative Minuteman leaders turned against
Gilchrist, including Barbara Coe. She heads the
California Coalition for Immigration Reform and
co-wrote Proposition 187, the ballot measure that
sought to deny undocumented immigrants certain public
benefits.

“It is absolutely traumatic,” said Coe, of Huntington
Beach. “I had total loyalty to him, and I reassured
Jim many times. I pleaded with him, I begged him to
[work] with us who were trying to resolve the problems
with the Minuteman Project.”

Some of Gilchrist’s opponents recently filed a
complaint against their former leader with the
Internal Revenue Service, alleging that he did not
obtain nonprofit status for the group. They say he
improperly received a 40% discount nonprofit postal
rate by using another organization’s nonprofit status.

Gilchrist said a direct mail group was responsible for
securing the Minuteman’s nonprofit status and, if they
hadn’t, it wasn’t a crime on his part.

Gilchrist said he filed a complaint with the Orange
County Sheriff’s Department, alleging that two board
members should not have taken more than $6,000 in
Minuteman funds.

In early February, board members voted to replace
Gilchrist with Marvin Stewart, a Southland minister.

Stewart said Gilchrist’s charisma “is what got me on
the team. It attracted people across the nation to
come aboard.

“But when we talk about the rule of law as an
organization fighting illegal immigration, we too as
an organization must be in compliance with the rule of
law,” he said. “When we allow these things to occur
with any organization, we send a message to the
public.”