BLM’S ‘HOME PLOT’ THICKENS
Markup of $2.7M when LA manse was sold
The sprawling Los Angeles mansion purchased by the country’s top Black Lives Matter group sold for more than 250% of the price of similar properties in its Studio City neighborhood, and went for $2.7 million more than property records show.
Records state that the property initially sold for $3.1 million in October 2020, but by the time it was transferred to a shell company controlled by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation days later, the price had increased to $5.8 million.
It’s unclear what caused the discrepancy. A spokesman for BLMGNF could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The group bought the sprawling property, which features a separate sound stage, pool and guest house, in the fall of 2020 to be used as a creative “campus” and safe house for the group, according to a report in New York magazine on Monday.
BLMGNF paid in cash for the mansion, which is divided into two parcels.
The house was purchased by Dyane Pascall, a real-estate developer who worked for Janaya and Patrisse Consulting, a for-profit firm run by BLMGNF co-founder Patrisse Cullors and her partner Janaya Khan.
Chain of cu$tody
On Oct. 21, 2020, property records show that Pascall bought the mansion from televangelists Shawn and Cherie Bolz. The sale price for both parcels of land was $3.1 million, Shawn Bolz told The Post Tuesday.
Pascall purchased the property two weeks after California’s attorney general approved a $65 million transfer from Thousand Currents, the charity which collected donations on behalf of BLMGNF. The group has delayed its reporting to the IRS, and has not yet disclosed where that money has gone.
Two days after the purchase, on Oct. 23, lawyers for the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie incorporated a limited liability company named for the mansion’s address in Delaware. Four days later — on Oct. 27 — the home was transferred to the company for $5.8 million, records show. Property records also show that no transfer taxes were charged. BLMGNF is a tax-exempt charity.
Celebrities and the wealthy often create limited liability companies for privacy and to protect their assets from creditors. The quick fluctuation in price for the BLMGNF property has raised eyebrows among charity experts and good government groups.
“A review of property assessment records show the value of the mansion BLMGNF purchased skyrocketed while all the neighboring properties saw an average of less than a 5% increase,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center.
“This raises serious questions concerning the purchase price of the house and the way the transaction was handled through cash and a shadowy LLC,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s Virginia-based watchdog group amended a complaint against BLMGNF to the IRS and the California AG after news of the luxury mansion purchase surfaced earlier this week.
Los Angeles County property assessment records consulted by The Post show the value of the two parcels combined as $3,321,580 on July 6, 2020, three months before Pascall’s purchase. That value nearly doubled after the purchase of the property. On Jan. 24, 2021, the assessment for
the two parcels shot up to $5,888,000, records show.
Pascall told The Post Tuesday he could no longer remember the exact price that he paid for the property in 2020. “I paid the asking price,” he said, and refused to elaborate.
A woman who answered the phone at the Studio City office of Keller Williams, the listing agent, said that the sale was handled through their Encino, Calif., branch, which was liquidated last month.
257.43% more pricey
The stylish “farmhouse,” built in 1936 and boasting past visits from Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart, was 257.43% “more expensive” than similar homes in its Studio City nabe, according to realtor.com.
The mansion served as the backdrop in a YouTube video recorded last June by three BLM leaders — Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah — who marked the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. The video, and a YouTube channel featuring Cullors have since been removed from the Web.
“It’s because we’re powerful, because we are winning,” Cullors said of what she characterized as right-wing media attacks in the now-private video. “It’s because we are threatening the establishment, we’re threatening white supremacy.”
Cullors resigned from the group in May 2021, a month after The Post exclusively reported that she had gone on a $3.2 million real estate buying spree, purchasing properties in Los Angeles and a home in suburban Atlanta, complete with an airfield and airplane hangar. She sold that property in July 2021, property records show.