The National Rifle Association (NRA), the once powerful gun owners’ lobbying group, will not be overseen by a government monitor, but must bar former leader Wayne LaPierre from serving at the organization for a decade, a New York court ruled on Monday as part of a long-running corruption case.
Appointing a monitor to regulate the group’s finances and governing procedures would be “time-consuming, disruptive and will impose significant costs on the NRA without corresponding benefits,” and could risk “speech-chilling government intrusion” on a group that’s long opposed government regulation, judge Joel Cohen of the Manhattan Supreme Court wrote in his ruling.
“At this point in time, we’re relieved that we’re where we are in the process,” Doug Hamlin, the recently elected head of the group, told The New York Times after the decision.
“We are committed to transparency and good governance and being good stewards of our membership fees, and we’re going to prove it,” he added.
New York Attorney General Leticia James, whose office brought the case against the NRA, celebrated the decision.
“After years of corruption, the NRA and its senior leaders are finally being held accountable,” she said in a statement to The Independent.
During the trial, LaPierre compared appointing a monitor to “putting a knife straight through the heart of the organization and twisting it.”
In 2020, James sued the group, long an influential power-broker for the Republican Party, after leaks revealed executives like LaPierre spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury items, travel, and high-end clothes.
During the first phase of the trial in February, LaPierre, who resigned from his position days before the trial began, was found liable for corruption alongside another top executive and was ordered to return more than $5m in improperly used funds to the NRA.
LaPierre, long the group’s most visible public spokesperson, has already repaid the NRA more than $1m.
The NRA says it has no plans to rehire him.
Since the corruption allegations surfaced, the NRA has reportedly lost 1.3m members.
