Puerto Rican Day Parade Leadership Axed

Puerto Rican Day Parade Leadership Axed
Fags of Puerto Rico are displayed along 5th Ave. during the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday, June 9, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Fags of Puerto Rico are displayed along 5th Ave. during the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday, June 9, 2013, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will announce Thursday that he is ousting more than half the leadership of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade Inc. for financial mismanagement and is reconstituting its board of directors.

The shake-up of the nonprofit group — sponsor for decades of one of the country’s best known ethnic parades — follows a 9-month probe in which Schneiderman found the event’s longtime private fund-raiser, Carlos Velasquez and his GALOS Corp., siphoned off more than $1.4 million in corporate donations since 2008, largely because of lax oversight by the parade committee’s directors.

The stunning announcement, coming just four months before this year’s annual parade in June, casts a cloud over this major showcase of Latino ethnic pride, but it was welcomed by critics who have long sought reforms in the parade’s management.

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