Is Dexter King Mismanaging Family Funds?

Dexter King calls lawsuit false, reckless

Relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. claim Dexter is mismanaging family funds

By ERNIE SUGGS, BOB KEEFE
Cox News Service
Published on: 07/12/08

MALIBU, Calif. — Dexter Scott King said Saturday that he was “shocked” by a recent lawsuit filed by his siblings accusing him of mismanaging money in one family account and taking money for his own personal use out of another.

“It totally blindsided me. I think maybe it was a reckless attempt to express their grievances. They are false claims and I will addressing that accordingly,” King said in a brief interview at his Malibu home a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean in an exclusive community west of Los Angeles.

 

 

We are private family,” King said. “It is a private business matter, you know, a family dispute, if you will. It’s probably blown out of proportion, but until I’ve had a chance to thoroughly review the complaint, it’s just kind of difficult for me to address it.”

Back in Atlanta, Juanita Abernathy winced when she picked up her Saturday morning newspaper and read that the children of Martin Luther King Jr. were suing each other over money.

“It tugs at the heartstrings, because I know that their parents would not want this,” said Abernathy, the wife of the late Ralph David Abernathy, King’s closest confidant. “They taught their children to get along.”

Last Thursday, Bernice and Martin King III filed the lawsuit against Dexter accusing him of mishandling funds from King Inc., hiding documents from them, and taking money out of the Coretta Scott King estate.

At stake are millions of dollars in assets linked to King’s intellectual property rights, including the $32 million that donors in Atlanta recently paid to acquire 10,000 pages of his papers.

“I know that if it were any other family going through any other probate struggle, it wouldn’t be in the front page of the newspaper,” said Michael Julian Bond, a former Atlanta councilman. “Everything you do, moments that you would love to share — like the birth of [King III's] baby, to the pain of this lawsuit — is subject to being broadcast everywhere. “

Atlanta became a Black Mecca when, under King’s leadership, much of the strategy of the civil rights movement was planned here. The movement’s leaders — King, Abernathy, Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, Julian Bond, and Hosea Williams — stayed and raised families.

Their kids have been in the spotlight since birth.

“It is a double-edged sword,” said Ralph David Abernathy III. “Everything you say and do is watched. The expectations that people have of you are much greater than the average individual.”

Bond, whose father, Julian Bond was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the current chairman of the NAACP, said the pressure could be intense.

“It is almost as if you are not allowed to have any privacy or a real childhood. [The Kings] had it much worse than my brothers and sisters, but you are constantly being watched,” he said, adding that adults pegged him early as a politician.

“My name was ‘Michael Bond, Julian Bond’s Son.’ That is even how my closest friends introduced me. I was always attached to my father. It didn’t matter what I did or where I went — playing soccer in high school or trying to date girls — it was ever present.”

Juanita Abernathy said there is a certain vulnerability that all of the kids are susceptible to.

“There are vultures out there that will prey on your children, ” she said. “If you sneeze loud enough, somebody will write about it.”

Her son knows the dangers of an ill-placed sneeze.

Aside from the Kings, no child of an Atlanta civil rights leader has gotten more press.

“People would say, ‘That is Ralph David Abernathy’s son, he has had it easy, so I am going to make it hard on him,’” said Abernathy III, a former state senator. “It makes it that much tougher to grow up.”

In 2000, he was sentenced to four years in prison for theft by taking, forgery, influencing a witness and violation of oath of a public officer. He was released in 2003. He said it is inevitable that a child of an icon would go through life worrying about fulfilling a legacy.

“You would not be human if it didn’t cross your mind,” he said. ” But my father used to tell me, every tub must sit on its own bottom. Everybody is accountable for their own life.”

Juanita Abernathy said she is confident that the King children will eventually settle their dispute quietly.

“I taught my children that you may fight behind closed doors but come out together, because you are the same blood and come from the same parents,” she said. “I teach that every day. I know Martin and Coretta taught their children that.”

That may be wishful thinking.

Dexter King said one of the reasons he was stunned by the lawsuit is that his siblings never picked up the phone to call him. Now they aren’t answering their phone.

“I left them a message to call me, so we could talk, and they have not returned the call,” he said. “I assumed they were busy. I just … I don’t understand it.”

Case’s Opinion: Usually in the families of those who’ve died who were well to do,  if there wasn’t a will, family members who were close to the decease dip in the funds and use it for their personal use.Usually, it’s not made public. It is something the family deals with privately. If Dexter King is mismananaging money which belongs to his father’s estate and is a family account, he should have asked the other siblings if he could use some of the funds for his personal use. They would have decided if the money was for a legitimate cause and what amount he should be given. If the money is in a family account, the family members make the decision for the use of the money collectively. Dexter seems to have been dipping and dabbing which is why his siblings are suing him for mismanagement of the money. He should be ashamed of himself and he should be embarrassed especially since the suit has been made public. People will see him in a different light and the light is dim. Denying he did anything wrong implys he knew nothing about his sibling’s reaction about the mismanagement of the funds. Why would his siblings make the mismanangement claim public if they hadn’t tried to resolve the matter with Dexter King privately? I smell a skunk.