Although it wasn’t reported at the time, New York Magazine has revealed that back in October 2020, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation — often abbreviated BLMGNF or just BLM — spent nearly $6 million in donated funds on a luxurious estate in Studio City, an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood.
The all-cash deal closed five months after George Floyd’s murder sparked nationwide protests and widespread donations to various BLM chapters. In February 2021, BLM financial documents revealed the organization raised more than $90 million in 2020 alone, making the $6 million property splurge a drop in the proverbial bucket.
But the purchase has engendered criticism, both for the property’s scale and because BLM apparently took strides to prevent the transaction from becoming public knowledge. And it’s not the first time that the org has faced scrutiny over lavish real estate spending; back in April 2021, Dirt broke the story that BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors had purchased a residential compound in L.A.’s Topanga Canyon. The New York Post subsequently revealed that the Topanga property was just one piece of the $3.2 million luxury real estate portfolio Cullors had amassed while serving as an executive director of BLM.
Cullors, for her part, characterized the reporting about her home purchases as “right-wing media disinformation and harassment.” She also stated that she was “currently in survival mode” in a May 2021 YouTube video that was filmed at the $6 million estate, which BLM hadn’t yet publicly acknowledged.
Grant deeds reviewed by Dirt seem to indicate that the Studio City property’s existence was deliberately concealed. Rather than being acquired outright by the BLM organization, the property was purchased by a man named Dyane Pascall, a little-known financial manager who has previously done work for Cullors and at least one other BLM executive. Pascall apparently wasn’t concerned with getting a discount on the big…