Wayne LaPierre’s civil trial, slated to begin Monday in New York, still threatens to unravel the National Rifle Association, despite the longtime leader’s resignation from the prominent gun rights group that has held much power in the U.S. for decades.
LaPierre, 74, had led the NRA for more than 30 years as the organization’s executive vice president. He announced his departure Friday as jury selection neared an end.
He, along with two other current and former NRA leaders and the organization as a whole are fending off a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James in 2020 that alleges they violated nonprofit laws and misused millions of dollars of NRA funds to finance lavish lifestyles for themselves.
The jury will spend the next six weeks in a Manhattan courtroom hearing testimony from roughly 120 witnesses.
If the jurors find the individual defendants liable, they will recommend the amount of money that each defendant would have to repay the NRA.
They would have also been tasked with recommending whether LaPierre should be ousted from the helm of the group, which is now moot.
But the trial outcome may still have important ramifications, according to Shannon Watts, who founded the gun safety group Moms Demand Action in 2012 in part to challenge the gun lobby.
State Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen, who has the final say over monetary damages and remedies, could determine whether the defendants should be permanently barred from serving on the board of any charity in New York and whether an independent monitor should oversee the NRA’s finances.
“It was never just about Wayne LaPierre,” Watts said, adding that the organization “needs to be taken down at the studs.”
In his announcement, LaPierre said he has been a “card-carrying member” of the NRA for most of his adult life and that he would “never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom.”
“My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever,” LaPierre…
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