The leader of a conspiracy-driven sheriffs’ movement is facing a criminal investigation over his stewardship of a hydroxychloroquine-hyping group, which accuses him of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars while acting as their president.
Richard Mack is the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a far-right group with ties to the militia movement. In November, he announced a step back from the CSPOA, instead focusing his efforts on leading America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), an anti-vaccine group. The AFLDS is mired in legal troubles, with former leaders suing each other over lavish payouts and disputes over who actually works there.
Mack’s tenure has continued in that same proud tradition. Early this month, AFLDS’s lawyer filed a police complaint accusing Mack of stealing $350,000 in donor contributions.
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“There’s no ambiguity here,” said Kevin Jenkins, chair of the AFLDS oversight committee set up in the wake of allegations that the group’s leadership was plundering donations. “There’s nothing to be confused about. He’s absolutely a criminal.”
Mack did not return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment. But in a Tuesday CSPOA webinar, he addressed some of the allegations.
“I have not stolen or embezzled anything,” Mack said in the broadcast. “I was in a position to secure some funds against some people who were doing very dishonest things. I wanted to make sure that funds that belonged to the donors to AFLDS were secure and I took them from one bank account to another bank where we already had other accounts with [parent company] Free Speech Foundation and AFLDS and I put it in that bank. That is all that has happened.
Mack added that a police officer had interviewed him in the case and that there “certainly was no criminal intent on my part. I’m just waiting for the judge to decide where the money should go, and that is where I will put it.”
But according to Jenkins, Mack cleared the cash from the AFLDS’s bank account without authorization, after an Arizona judge recommended the AFLDS board step down. The judge’s recommendation came amid one of multiple lawsuits between AFLDS factions—this one by AFLDS’s founder, Dr. Simone Gold, against the organization she once led.
AFLDS and Gold shot to fame on the right during the pandemic, in part because of their willingness to endorse unproven treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and connect supporters with prescriptions for the drugs. The group brought in tens of millions of dollars in donations.
But AFLDS splintered late last year after Gold emerged from a 60-day prison sentence for her participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Board members accused her of squandering donor money on a $3.6 million mansion in Florida, luxury vehicles, and even a $100,000 private jet trip.
Since then, Gold and her faction of AFLDS employees have been fighting former chairman Joey Gilbert and his allies in multiple lawsuits for control of the group. Mack, who received a $20,000 monthly salary from AFLDS, has sided against Gold and backed the branch of AFLDS that wanted to fire her from the nonprofit for good.
Still, Gold has maintained control of the AFLDS website and some of its social media accounts, even using them to blast Gilbert’s faction.
“She’s been told by the freaking judge in Arizona, ‘You’re not on the board,’” Jenkins said, indicating that his group was contemplating further legal action against her. “And she’s going around using our trademark. She actually hijacked our emails, and she’s been raising money or attempting to raise money, as if she is an officer of America Frontline Doctors.”
Jenkins claimed the AFLDS couldn’t pay staffers after Mack moved the money, and alleged that Mack was seeking a backroom deal with Gold.
“This was payroll,” Jenkins said. “So people haven’t been paid because of him. So he created a hardship for many people because of his greed and because of him trying to negotiate a deal, a private deal with [Gold] … under the auspices of creating his private deal with Simone Gold to give him a buyout.”
(AFLDS has previously missed payroll. In January, amid bitter internal legal rifts, the nonprofit did not pay its staff.)
Reinette Senum, a former Nevada City, California, mayor who resigned over controversial COVID comments and now works with the AFLDS, shared bank slips last week appearing to verify Mack’s withdrawals in two $175,000 transactions. In a follow-up video with Jenkins, Senum said the AFLDS had given Mack a chance to pay up.
“An opportunity was given to Richard Mack to give the money back. Give the money back so it won’t go to where it’s gone. And he wouldn’t,” Senum said. “It’s like, you’re not getting back up, Mack. You’ve fallen down and you’re not getting back up.”
On April 1, AFLDS’s attorney filed a police report accusing Mack of “embezzlement/theft.” So far, Mack hasn’t been charged with any crimes.
“We have an active investigation related to [the case] and are unable to provide any additional information at this time,” a Gilbert Police Department spokesperson told The Daily Beast.
Emails reviewed by The Daily Beast show that the department’s financial crimes unit has interviewed Mack. “I have discussed this case with Mr. Mack and he advised the money removed from the Chase Bank account under Free Speech Foundation DBA AFLDS was moved to OneAzCU under the same name,” reads an email from a Gilbert Police investigator to the AFLDS’s attorney.
The officer said Mack was the signatory on the new account, along with someone police described as “Dewey Gardner (sp?),” whom AFLDS leaders say is not affiliated with them.
Criminal charges could be awkward for Mack, whose sheriffs’ organization trains law enforcement.
“They’ve given hundreds of trainings to law enforcement, in a couple of states now,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the extremism watchdog group Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. “He’s teaching the doctrine of interposition: that the sheriff can be used to interpose against laws they don’t like.”
Although Mack is not a doctor, his leadership of the AFLDS makes sense, Burghart told The Daily Beast. “Early in the pandemic, anti-vaxxers in particular latched onto the idea that the sheriff could intervene against mask mandates and vaccine requirements. Mack was the most visible proponent of that idea, so he immediately became a beacon to a lot of folks.”
The CSPOA has indicated that Mack did not steal money, but that it is waiting for a judge to rule.
“False claims are that Sheriff Mack has been criminally charged, has been arrested, that he stole money from America’s Front Line Doctors (AFLDS) and so on. They make these claims without providing proof/evidence of their allegations,” the organization said in a statement on its website. “For example: The withdrawal slips they provide show paid to Free Speech Foundation – AKA, a parent company for AFLDS. If the money was paid to Free Speech Foundation, how would Richard be able to take the money? The following article helps illustrate a critical point.”
That is not what the withdrawal slips say. The documents show Mack purchasing two $175,000 cashiers checks from the Free Speech Foundation (AFLDS’s business name), to be paid to himself.
The CSPOA press release quoted from an article about the difference between criminal allegations and criminal charges.
“Some claim that Richard didn’t have authority to take action,” the statement concludes. “A judge will decide.”
