Jewish community newspaper serving the Houston and Texas Gulf Coast area since 1908

P.S. I’m sorry
Published 20.DEC.07

It’s not over until the fat lady sings. In this case, she has lost her voice. For good.

The best news in six years – made public last week – is that an innocent couple has been absolved of all wrongdoing and false accusations, charges that originally were media-fabricated.

When KTRK Channel 13’s Wayne Dolcefino arrogantly began his damning 35-plus reports on Carol and Hurt Porter in 2002, the fallout stunned synagogue members, Jewish Boy Scouts and B’nai Mitzvah students who, for more than 21 years, had partnered with We Care About Kids, Kid-Care, Inc., for mitzvah projects. The Jewish community and the greater Houston community at-large wondered: Had they been helping the first-ever meals-on-wheels program for children, or its founders, who reportedly were lining their own pockets for extravagant personal expenses?

Was Dolcefino’s ruthless reporting on the Porters, the Kid-Care founders, accurate? Were the Porters guilty of “gross mismanagement and waste of charitable dollars meant to feed the hungry children of the city,” as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott stated in an April 24, 2003, press release?

Obviously not, since on July 13, 2004, the attorney general’s office dismissed its own lawsuit against the Porters. After finding no evidence of the couple’s using $1.6 million of Kid-Care money for personal use, as had been reported on TV, the AG’s office was forced to make a 180-degree turn.

Moreover, with the state’s lawsuit dropped, the Porters then refused to participate in any negotiations or settlement involving the AG’s office’s desire to collect on a $1 million Kid-Care board insurance policy. Curiously, the policy, which was designed to cover legal fees for board members (not charged with criminal activities), paid out $500,000 to the AG’s office. Of that sum, $300,000 was given to New Kid Care, in which the Porters were not involved. And regrettably, several local news sources this past week misrepresented the facts. Reporters implied that the insurance policy had reimbursed the organization for the Porter’s purported misuse of public funds, which if true, would have been a violation of the terms of the insurance policy to exclude coverage “brought about or contributed to in fact by dishonest, fraudulent or criminal Wrongful Act.”

Last week’s good news: The resolution of the Internal Revenue Service case against the Porters was made public. Unflappable, the IRS, possibly believing there to have been some truth to the Dolcefino exposé, and conceivably even using the AG’s records, had opened an investigation, claiming the Porters took, not $1.6 million of Kid-Care money for personal use, but $500,000. With the help of pro bono tax attorneys, the Porters went to court. Ultimately, the U.S. Tax Court judgment, entered on Nov. 7, 2007, found there to be a (negligible) $37 deficiency in the 2002 excise tax, filed by Hurt Porter. In a separate case against Carol Porter, the total tax deficiency found in filings from 2001 and 2002 was a (mere) $938.93 – hardly indicative of a fraudulent or criminal act.

Regrettably, it has taken six years for the Porters to clear the mud from their good name. Yet, because they were defamed, first in the media, then in the court of public opinion, not only were they forced out of their own 21-year-old internationally renowned organization, but their mission to “break the cycle of poverty” tragically was interrupted.

Prior to the fallacious reporting, Kid-Care was delivering 21,000 meals a month to impoverished children, even to children of former Enron employees, and was providing emergency financial assistance to struggling families. At that time, their newly opened Empowerment Center – which was 12 years in the making – was equipped to produce 100,000 meals a month, and included a teaching kitchen, a parenting and daycare center, a job-training facility, a Health Buggy for children’s exams and immunizations and a restaurant, whose profits would fund college scholarships. With the Porters gone, so too, was the poverty cycle-breaking concept of the center.

Sometimes, the good guys do win. However, the hungry and impoverished children of Houston lost a champion for their cause during these unfathomable chapters in Carol and Hurt Porter’s life.

Still operating Kid-Care Food Programs, Inc. (a grant-funded program), the Porters, fortunately, never lost hope, or the much-needed support from a few good friends. However, now is the time for those who easily were swayed – by a reporter who had too much power – to say, we were misled. We were wrong. We are sorry, Carol and Hurt. We are here to help you begin a new chapter.