Pa. Grand Jury Calls for Ouster of Stalled Museum’s CEO
January 31, 2014 | Read Time: 1 minute
A Pennsylvania grand jury issued a scathing report Thursday alleging multimillion-dollar waste and mismanagement in a project to build a museum of American industrial history in Bethlehem, Pa., the Allentown Morning Call reports.
The panel did not find evidence of criminal activity but recommended that National Museum of Industrial History President and CEO Stephen G. Donches resign or be fired and that the nonprofit institution’s board file suit against him. The museum, conceived in the 1990s, has raised more than $17-million in private donations and government grants but has yet to open.
According to the grand jury, the museum’s board suffered from conflicts of interest and exercised little or no oversight of Mr. Donches, a former Bethlehem Steel executive with no experience in nonprofit management. The organization had $770,000 on hand at the end of 2013 and “there exists no tangible evidence to believe that the museum will ever open and be viable under the current leadership,” the panel said.
Mr. Donches did not return a call for comment. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, who convened the grand jury, said he will forward its findings to Pennsylvania’s attorney general to consider dissolving the nonprofit organization.
