In Retrial, Man Who Helped Run Border Wall Charity Is Convicted

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Timothy Shea was the only one of four defendants in the federal case to face a jury. The former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon faces similar charges in state court.

By Colin Moynihan
Oct. 28, 2022

A man from Colorado who helped loot a charity that raised private money for a border wall of the sort championed by former President Donald J. Trump was convicted on Friday in a retrial in Manhattan federal court. An earlier trial was scuttled by a juror who was said to have insisted that the prosecution was a “government witch hunt.”

The man, Timothy Shea, has been the only one of four defendants to face a jury in the case so far, and his mistrial earlier this year was a setback for prosecutors in an office that has handled cases involving several defendants related to Mr. Trump and his allies.

For nearly two years, Mr. Shea was a central figure in raising money for a barrier separating the United States from Mexico, working with a tax exempt group that pledged to help fulfill Mr. Trump’s call for a “big, beautiful wall.”

We Build the Wall Inc. raised more than $25 million, claiming that all the money would go toward constructing a border barrier. Those promises were lies, said prosecutors with the United States attorney’s office, and on Friday a jury agreed, convicting Mr. Shea of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and falsification of documents.

Sitting in the well of the courtroom, Mr. Shea gazed straight ahead, seemingly impassive, as Judge Analisa Torres read the verdict.

“Months ago, this office stated our belief in the powerful and compelling evidence that showed Shea’s guilt,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “Today, a unanimous jury has convicted Shea on all counts in the indictment.”

The conviction ended a case that began in 2020 when Mr. Shea was arrested along with three other men who had prominent roles in We Build the Wall: the group’s president, an Air Force veteran named Brian Kolfage, who lost both legs and part of his right arm in Iraq and guaranteed that he would “not take a penny”; a Florida financier named Andrew Badolato; and Stephen K. Bannon, a former chief strategist for Mr. Trump.

Prosecutors said that all four schemed to secretly funnel money from We Build the Wall to themselves. Those funds, prosecutors added, ended up being used to pay hotel and credit card bills, to buy jewelry, a golf cart and a luxury SUV, and to purchase a truckload of Trump-themed energy drinks marketed as containing “liberal tears.”

By the time of the arrests of the four men, We Build the Wall’s website said the group had funded the creation of just under five miles of wall.

Mr. Kolfage pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy and tax-related charges. Mr. Badolato pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy.

Mr. Bannon was spared a federal trial after he received a pardon from Mr. Trump during his last hours as president but is now facing a trial in state court. Last month, the Manhattan district attorney’s office unsealed an indictment charging Mr. Bannon with money laundering, conspiracy and scheming to defraud.

Mr. Shea’s first prosecution ended in a mistrial amid allegations that one juror had sabotaged efforts to reach a verdict. In a letter to the judge overseeing the case, 11 jurors wrote that the 12th had referred to other panelists as “liberals” who had made up their minds before considering evidence, said Mr. Shea should have been tried in a Southern state and claimed that he was a victim of a “witch hunt.”

The second trial not only gave the U.S. attorney’s office another opportunity to convict Mr. Shea, but provided a new look at evidence that could be used by the Manhattan district attorney’s office against Mr. Bannon, probably sometime next year.

That evidence included text message exchanges in which Mr. Bannon appeared to say that a nonprofit group he started called Citizens of the American Republic could be used to funnel money to Mr. Kolfage, We Build the Wall’s public face, who had said he wanted to be paid $100,000 upfront, then $20,000 a month.

In addition to text messages, prosecutors drew from emails and bank records while arguing that Mr. Shea and Mr. Kolfage had always seen the fund-raising effort as a way to enrich themselves.

“From the beginning, this whole thing was about making money and doing side hustles,” a prosecutor, Mollie Bracewell, told jurors during her summation on Thursday. “This wasn’t a cause, it was a con.”

Charts introduced as evidence traced money that prosecutors said went from We Build the Wall to Ranch Property Marketing and Management, a company created by Mr. Shea, which then sent money to Mr. Shea and his wife and to Freedom Daily, a group whose bank account listed Mr. Kolfage and his wife as signers.

Other evidence indicated that We Build the Wall had sent $38,500 to a second company formed by Mr. Shea, Winning Energy LLC, which then transferred most of the funds to a company in Nevada that sent him nearly 50,000 cans of the liberal-tears drink depicting Mr. Trump as a superhero brandishing an American flag.

Several times, Mr. Shea’s lawyer, John C. Meringolo, drew a distinction between his client and “this guy Bannon.” Mr. Meringolo said that there would “never be any evidence” that Mr. Bannon actually worked to build sections of the wall, and that Mr. Shea by contrast had communicated with landowners and spent lengthy periods overseeing construction.

“Tim Shea is on the ground getting it done,” Mr. Meringolo told jurors during his summation. “He earned that money. He had expenses.”

Before becoming involved with We Build the Wall, Mr. Shea and his wife, Amanda, had used social media to promote various ventures. A marketing company Ms. Shea formed began helping Mr. Kolfage, who had been running Facebook pages and websites, including one called Right Wing News that sometimes published false or exaggerated stories.

In 2018, Facebook took down hundreds of political pages and accounts — including Right Wing News, Mr. Kolfage said — for what the company described as “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Later that year, Mr. Kolfage launched a GoFundMe campaign to build the border wall.

Soon Mr. Bannon and Mr. Badolato, who were already working on a nonprofit that prosecutors said was meant to promote economic nationalism and American sovereignty, joined the effort. That led to the formation of We Build the Wall.

Among the text messages introduced as evidence were some that showed communications among Mr. Shea, his wife and Mr. Kolfage as they began their fund-raising efforts in December 2018.

When Mr. Kolfage suggested creating a website to raise money, Mr. Shea replied “Yaaaass!” About a week later, he responded in another message to reports from Mr. Kolfage that donations were pouring in.

“I mean, people are crazy.” Mr. Shea wrote. “Who would throw money at something like this? At Christmas time!”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/nyre ... New%20York