A Los Angeles-based jail reform group led by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors spent nearly $26,000 for “meetings” at a luxury Malibu beach resort in 2019, according to campaign finance records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Reform LA Jails dropped $10,179 for “meetings and appearances” at the Calamigos Guest Ranch and Beach Club in Malibu, California, and another $15,593 at the Malibu Conference Center, a corporate conference facility owned by the resort, according to the records, which covered the time period between July and September 2019. Guests at the 200-acre resort, where rooms start at $600 a night, have exclusive access to a private five-acre strip of the Malibu coast.
The records show that the payments were made on behalf of the jail reform group by a consulting firm owned by Asha Bandele, a longtime mentor of Cullors and co-author of her 2018 biography, “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.”
Cullors, a self-proclaimed “trained Marxist,” is the founder and chairwoman of Reform LA Jails, also known as Vote Yes On R. The group, which says it is “powered by Black Lives Matter,” successfully led a ballot measure passed in 2020 that authorized the Los Angeles Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission to develop a plan to reduce the jail population in the county.
