Just days after a report came out in NY Magazine detailing the many ways that the founders of the Kabbalah cult were living large while screwing their congregationalists (metaphorically I guess), comes news that they’re under investigation for tax evasion. Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity, which is closely tied to Kabbalah, recently scrapped plans to build a $15 million school in Malawi and there are rumors of financial misdoing. Raising Malawi, The Kabbalah Centre, and several others Kabbalah-based charities have been named in a subpoena by the IRS as the subject of a grand jury probe.

The Kabbalah Centre, the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization that mingles ancient Jewish mysticism with the glamour of its celebrity devotees, is the focus of a federal tax evasion investigation probing, among other things, the finances of two charities connected to Madonna, the center’s most famous adherent.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the criminal division of the IRS is looking into whether nonprofit funds were used for the personal enrichment of the Berg family, which has controlled the Kabbalah Centre for more than four decades, a period in which it expanded from one school of a little-known strain of Judaism to a global brand with A-list followers like Ashton Kutcher and Gwyneth Paltrow and assets that may top $260 million.

Those cooperating with the IRS include representatives of one of Madonna’s charities, Raising Malawi. The nonprofit is named in subpoenas as a subject of the grand jury probe alongside the Bergs and Kabbalah Centre organizations despite having cut its ties with the center this spring.

“We have tried to provide as much information as we can as quickly as possible to the people who are investigating and are very actively cooperating in every way we can,” said Trevor Neilson of Global Philanthropy Group, a consulting firm now managing Raising Malawi.

In a statement in response to questions about the probe, the Kabbalah Centre acknowledged that it and one of its charities, Spirituality for Kids, “have received subpoenas from the government concerning tax-related issues.”

“The Centre and SFK intend to work closely with the IRS and the government, and are in the process of providing responsive information to the subpoenas,” according to the statement.

The IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York declined to comment. People with knowledge of the investigation said it began last year and is playing out on two coasts. A federal grand jury in Manhattan, where the Kabbalah Centre has a large branch and real estate holdings, is gathering evidence there, according to the subpoenas. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, where the center is headquartered on Robertson Boulevard, a team of IRS agents dispatched from the agency’s New York criminal division is interviewing people connected to the organization, said individuals familiar with the agents’ activities.

Among the items that investigators have reviewed, according to one source, is an August 2010 email in which a former chief financial officer of the center complained that he had been fired for pointing out financial improprieties and warned that the center was in danger of “committing suicide.”

Former CFO: Income tax fraud… I have little choice… but to bring down the entire Kabbalah Centre
“I recently uncovered instances of income tax fraud at the Kabbalah Centre — instances which could bankrupt several of the directors involved … this is very serious business,” the former CFO, Nicholas Vakkur, wrote in an email that circulated among high-level officials at the center. “I have little choice but to cooperate with the IRS and bring down the entire Kabbalah Centre,” Vakkur wrote, adding a plea that “someone in authority” try to “reason” with center Chief Executive Karen Berg.

[From The La Times]

The article goes on to say that The Spirituality for Kids Kabbalah-based charity is also being investigated. Madonna was the chairwoman of the board on that charity and donated $600,000 of her own money. She put $11 million into Raising Malawi with hardly any results. Do you think she’ll cut ties with Kabbalah now that they’re under the gun? Madonna throws people under the bus when they make her look bad, so I’m just waiting for some kind of statement from her distancing herself from the organization and stating that she had no idea about any wrongdoing.

This just makes me wonder how Scientology has avoided tax evasion charges in the US up until now, and I believe the answer is intimidation and litigation. Still, this is definitely a start.

Meanwhile, Madonna, 54, and her latest 24 year-old boytoy, Brahim Zaibat (pronounced “Jailbait”) have split up, reportedly over religion. Zaibat is Muslim and Madonna of course belongs to a mystical Jewish-based cult. I would speculate that maybe Zaibat refused to get circumcised for Madonna, but from what I can find male circumcision is common among Muslims. So he had that going for him.

Madonna is shown on 5/2 and 2/27/11. Credit: WENN.com

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