The former chief of the National Rifle Association (NRA), Wayne LaPierre, testified as a witness in a Manhattan trial over his alleged misuse of the agency's funds.
During the NRA corruption trial on Friday, the jury selected to hear the case bore witness to the photographs of sunshine-dappled luxury yachts and tales of pricer Bahamas getaways. These were images of yacht staterooms, yacht dining suites, and spacious yacht jacuzzis.
All of them were displayed on large screens in the Manhattan civil courtroom where the civil trial was taking place, now in its third week. LaPierre was seen following along from the witness stand, flipping through hard-copy photographs of throw-pillow-strewn decks and interiors from a five-inch-thick binder of evidence against him.
An assistant New York attorney general, Jonathan Conley, asked LaPierre, "You would both stay in staterooms?" The defendant then answered, "Yes," referring to himself and his wife, Susan LaPierre. Conley also asked if the defendant disclosed the trips to the board of the NRA in advance, receiving a "Yes" answer, as per Business Insider.
LaPierre insisted that he did not need to disclose the many times that vendor David McKenzie essentially turned over the keys to his fully-staffed motor yachts so that the gun-lobby leader and his family could cruise the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Aegean seas.
The agency's bylaws require the defendant to report any gift from a vendor "in excess of $300," which is a language that was also displayed for jurors on the overhead screens in the court. However, LaPierre spoke from the stand on Friday that that did not matter because McKenzie and his wife Laura, were his friends.
LaPierre's defense team argued that the boat was not even a gift, saying that the friend's companies, Membership Marketing Partners and Associated Television International, received hundreds of millions of dollars in NRA business.
Wayne LaPierre Testifies as Witness
It was also revealed that another NRA contractor, Ackerman McQueen, bought LaPierre's wife a MacBook Pro, an iPad Pro, and an iPod. The NRA chief also billed the organization for a number of expensive gifts, such as a $1,260 handbag and $860 in candlesticks for the McKenzies, according to the New York Times.
The defendant charged more than $250,000 to a clothing boutique in Beverly Hills, California, over several years, and even billed the agency $800 per year for mosquito treatment in his backyard. He is currently being tried along with the NRA itself and two other co-defendants, John Frazer and Wilson Phillips.
Frazer is the organization's general counsel while Phillips is a former finance chief. The entire case stems from a 2020 lawsuit that was brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Her jurisdiction over the agency comes because it is a non-profit organization that was founded in New York in 1871.
Some of LaPierre's former employees have also turned against him, including the former second-in-command of the NRA, Joshua Powell. The latter reached a settlement deal with the attorney general's office before trial.
Powell in 2020 accused LaPierre of using tragedies, including the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre, as a way to siphon money from NRA members, said Yahoo News.
