Wayne LaPierre ran the National Rifle Association for more than three decades, and on the way out he tried one last move: argue to a New York appeals court that the law could make him explain how he spent the NRA’s money but could not actually make him pay it back. On June 3, the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department of the New York State Supreme Court told him no, upholding the $4.35 million judgment against him and the 10-year ban that keeps him out of NRA leadership.
The ruling, announced by the Office of the New York State Attorney General, leaves intact a December 11, 2024 judgment that ordered LaPierre to repay $4.35 million plus nine percent annual interest and barred him from serving as an officer or director of the NRA, or any organization under its direct control, for a decade. Former NRA Chief Financial Officer Wilson “Woody” Phillips, who faced separate liability in the same case, was ordered to pay $2 million plus the same nine percent interest.
“Wayne LaPierre and other senior NRA leaders broke the law by funneling millions of dollars in lavish perks to themselves and their families,” James said in a statement. “After we successfully proved our case to a jury, LaPierre was ordered to pay $4.3 million and was barred from serving as an NRA officer or director for a decade. This decision upholds the jury’s verdict and is another victory in our efforts to ensure that LaPierre is held accountable for his illegal self-dealing.”
Those “lavish perks” were specific. LaPierre billed the NRA more than $11 million for private jet flights and ran up more than $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over a three-year span, per CBS News. He spent $274,000 on tailored suits from an NRA contractor. He authorized roughly $135 million in NRA contracts for a vendor whose owners returned the favor with free luxury trips and access to a 108-foot yacht. LaPierre had led the gun-rights group since 1991, and he treated a nonprofit’s donor money like a personal expense account.
The case traces back to August 2020, when James filed a lawsuit against the NRA and its current and former senior officers for mismanaging the organization’s funds. The suit named LaPierre, Phillips, and former General Counsel and current Corporate Secretary John Frazer. On the eve of trial in January 2024, LaPierre abruptly announced his retirement. James was unimpressed: “While the end of the Wayne LaPierre era is an important victory in our case, our push for accountability continues,” she said at the time.
The trial went ahead anyway, and on February 23, 2024, the jury found the NRA, LaPierre, Phillips, and Frazer had violated state law. The jury determined the NRA failed to properly administer charitable funds and failed to protect whistleblowers, that the NRA and Frazer made false statements on regulatory filings, and that LaPierre had caused the organization $5.4 million in damages while Phillips caused $2 million. LaPierre’s $5.4 million was reduced to the $4.35 million he was ordered to repay after credit for money he had already returned.
After a separate bench trial, the court issued the December 2024 judgment that, beyond the money, forced real governance changes on the NRA: hiring a compliance consultant under court and AG oversight, removing audit-committee members who served between 2014 and 2022, changing how board members are elected to cut entrenchment, and issuing members an annual compliance report on travel expenses and contracts for at least five years. These were structural changes to how the NRA is run.
LaPierre’s appeal threw several arguments at the wall. He claimed the statute requiring him to “account for” his conduct meant he only had to explain it, not repay damages. He argued his pre-trial resignation should have invalidated the 10-year ban. And he claimed James went after him to retaliate against his gun-rights advocacy. The appellate panel rejected all of it. On the retaliation theory, the court wrote that “to the extent LaPierre argues that the Attorney General brought this action against him in retaliation for his exercise of free speech, we reject this contention,” finding the AG had probable cause because “public reports of malfeasance at the NRA predated the investigation,” according to Westfair. LaPierre’s lawyer has signaled he may try to take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, per The Reload.
The NRA the scandal left behind is much smaller than the one LaPierre inherited. The group has lost roughly a million members since its 2018 peak, member dues revenue dropped more than $20 million between 2022 and 2023, and in 2021 the NRA spent about $52 million, or 21 percent of its total budget, on legal fees, according to GIFFORDS, the gun-control group that has tracked the decline. The donor money that paid for jets and Bahamas trips came from the same members the organization keeps losing.
If you donated to the NRA during the LaPierre years, the court paperwork is the most concrete accounting you are going to get of where your dues went. You can read New York’s Attorney General full account of the ruling on the official OAG site, and the same office’s earlier filings lay out the spending line by line. The $4.35 million is owed to the NRA, which means to its members. Whether they ever see it depends on what LaPierre tries next.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
