The man behind an alleged scheme that profited off candy-selling teens — and whose various nonprofit groups have a trail of complaints from New York to Georgia — recently agreed to shut down his operations in D.C., Maryland and Virginia following investigations by top prosecutors in those jurisdictions.
For years, the nonprofit founder Jule Huston recruited teenagers from some of the D.C. region’s poorest neighborhoods to sell candy door-to-door in more affluent areas. He then pocketed proceeds for himself, according to the prosecutors, who over the past week announced settlement agreements with Huston.
Huston, who was not charged criminally as part of the matter and throughout the proceedings denied that he willfully misused funds, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Under the terms of settlements with the three jurisdictions, he was barred from doing business in the area and must pay a $5,000 fine to benefit area nonprofit groups that serve young people.
The case examined the Maryland Youth Club of America and Virginia Youth Club of America, which claimed to support young people “before they become statistics” by offering them scholarships, trips, part-time jobs, laptops and more. In D.C., many of the children hailed from low-income neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, according to D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.
Schwalb, along with Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and Maryland Secretary of State Susan C. Lee, said the organization was unable to show that any of its $857,000 in gross candy sales translated to consistent pay, trips or scholarships for the children who sold the candy for $10 a box.
Instead, Schwalb alleged, Huston transferred more than $23,000 in funds to his personal CashApp account, his mother, a company he created and another nonprofit officer. Prosecutors also said the Maryland Youth Club accumulated expenses from local gas stations, Petco, AutoZone, Walmart and other businesses in New York, where Huston lives.
“A large amount” of the funds the nonprofit groups raised could not be accounted for; Huston destroyed four years of the Maryland Youth Club’s financial records, the prosecutors said.
In 2021, a representative for one of the nonprofits told the Braddock Buzz, a Northern Virginia news outlet, that the teens were paid $2 per item sold and “make at least minimum wage.” Prosecutors said the nonprofit couldn’t prove it.
“Upon information and belief, no direct benefits were reported to have been provided to the children, and Mr. Huston was unable or unwilling to demonstrate any such benefits were provided to the children,” Maryland officials wrote in a settlement agreement.
“These adults exploited children twice — first by sending them door-to-door as salespeople, then by misusing the money donors thought would help at-risk youth,” Brown said in a statement. “We’ve shut down these sham operations and banned the people behind them from ever running a charity in Maryland again.”
It’s not the first brush Huston has had with prosecutors over allegedly dubious or exploitative candy-selling schemes.
He was arrested and charged with child endangerment in New York in 2010, according to local news reports, after an officer saw two young people, 12 and 13, selling candy outside in 19-degree weather; at the time, Huston — then 25 years old — was supervising them as part of an organization called the New York Youth Club. Huston denied negligence and the charges were dropped, reports said. As recently as this December, teens asking for donations for an organization called the Long Island Youth Club were spotted in the Hamptons, according to the East Hampton Star.
There is also the Carolina Youth Club, which in 2018 faced enforcement action in South Carolina for allegedly failing to file required financial reports for its door-to-door candy sales operations involving children, which meant state authorities could not tell whether the charity was actually benefiting the youths. Huston told a local NBC affiliate it was a misunderstanding and he had filed the proper paperwork.
Huston was also named in a 2021 Georgia indictment that accused him and 13 other people of using a fraudulent charity — called the Georgia Peach Youth Club of America — to fund “criminal street gang activity.” According to the indictment, the youth club supervisors would pick up children and drive them around Georgia to sell candy and food door-to-door. But Huston and others, the indictment alleged, “kept money for themselves for their own personal financial gain and promotion of the Nine Trey Bloods street gang.” A spokesperson for Georgia’s attorney general said Wednesday that the prosecution was still “active and ongoing,” declining to provide additional comment on the status of the case.
The post Nonprofits told kids selling candy would help them. It was a scam, officials say. appeared first on Washington Post.
