Bloomberg learned about harassment and embezzlement in Sean Penn's organization

Founded by an American actor, CORE RESPONSE was dedicated to helping those affected by crises. Investigators learned that its employees complained of sexual harassment,

Actor Sean Penn's non-profit Community Organized Relief Effort, known as CORE Response, is mismanaged, with employees reporting sexual harassment and some being forced to go to COURT. This is stated in the investigation, which was conducted and published by the American business magazine BLOOMBERG Businessweek.

Originally called J/P Haitian Relief Organization, CORE Response was created at the initiative of actor Sean Penn to help victims of the Haiti earthquake in January 2010. In 2019, she took the name CORE and announced her intention to conduct global charitable work, connecting to help combat the consequences of the CORONAVIRUS pandemic. In 2020, CORE distributed free covid-19 tests in the US . So far, according to the organization, it has helped the victims of many natural disasters and crises, including in Ukraine.

According to Bloomberg, a significant portion of CORE's revenue comes from donations from celebrities and IT CEOs. In particular, billionaire Jack Dorsey, then the CEO of Twitter and a friend of Penn, gave the NPO $10 million in May 2020, and another $20 million a month later. 2020 - $76 million, and in 2021 - $122 million.

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“CORE staff say NGO leaders continue to mismanage funds and ignore or slacken on employee complaints. One employee said executives use non-profit funds to pay for improper expenses ranging from luxury dinners and hotel rooms to airline tickets.

Bloomberg quotes former CORE employee Sam Hilsman, who resigned from the organization as chief technology officer in September 2022 because "management ignored his financial concerns." “I tried to explain it to them two years ago,” Hilsman said, noting that key governing bodies paid more attention to the image in the press than to the work of NGOs.

The publication, citing three employees, also writes that during conference calls, CEO Ann Lee, who was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the NPO, constantly said that funds for conducting non-profit activities could be used to finance other projects. “Dozens of current and former employees say the gap between CORE's stated goals and actions is much larger. The investigation showed that CORE left aid shipments unclaimed for several days or returned them to donors because there was simply no one to take care of them. The NPO has frustrated partners with sloppy fieldwork and unclear management of multimillion-dollar federal grants, and has failed to report some spending information on tax returns.

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“Employees also say allegations of sexual harassment and harassment in the form of slaps and hits remained unanswered at CORE, and many who came forward faced retaliation. Some of them have filed lawsuits. Since September, CORE's attorneys have repeatedly delayed the date of the National Labor Relations Board's trial due to Penn's email threatening employees who publicly criticized working conditions.

Bloomberg quotes Sarena Serrano, who joined CORE in June 2020 at the age of 23 as a volunteer. She soon landed a full-time paid job at a COVID-19 testing center at the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball stadium. “It was like a summer camp for adults, but in a bad way. Eight CORE employees who worked at the stadium said that firefighters from the city's fire department on duty at the center constantly sexually harassed female colleagues at the stadium. One witness said the firefighters called them "CORE whores"

Serrano herself, in a lawsuit against CORE, as well as other witnesses, testified that Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Jamie Lesinski, who oversaw firefighters at the stadium's covid center, constantly spanked and harassed her for several months. These testimonies, notes Bloomberg, are confirmed by the documents that Bloomberg received, as well as the words of another employee. “The Los Angeles [Fire] Battalion Chief stroked my ass every time he walked by. I cried every day because of this because I didn't know what to do. I was scared,” Serrano says, stating that the fire chief offered to spend the night as a sex worker.

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Serrano stated that she reported these incidents to her line manager, but after not receiving a response for several weeks, she spoke directly to Ann Lee about it. “I was crying, telling her about how Lesinsky touched me, and she said:“ Sarena, sympathize with me. Think of me and what I'm going through. Lesinski is my friend, ”the woman’s words are quoted by the publication, noting that they were confirmed by a witness who was present at this conversation.

Bloomberg reports that about a month later, CORE fired Serrano "in retaliation for what she claims was her opinion." She filed suit against CORE, including for wrongful termination, against Lesinski for sexual touching and gender-based violence, and against CORE and the Los Angeles Fire Department for "permitting sexual harassment in the workplace." Her claim is pending.

Lesinski and the city's fire department did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment. CORE said in a statement that after Serrano's conversation with Lee, "urgent action was taken to remove Lesinski from the site and an investigation was launched." Currently, Lesinski remains a battalion commander and runs a fire station in the Eagle Rock area of ​​Los Angeles.

After the pandemic, CORE was criticized for launching humanitarian missions without the necessary training. Employees of other NGOs, according to Bloomberg, say that it has become commonplace on the part of Penn's company. “CORE staff repeatedly arrived in humanitarian crisis areas without careful planning, took photographs to increase their reputation and raise funds for a solution to the problem, and then drove on,” the publication notes.

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The negligent attitude of NGOs to the delivered humanitarian aid was also noted, in particular, there is a known case when it was simply forgotten. Bloomberg quoted Laura Domenech, a CORE partner at the University of Puerto Rico HEALTH Sciences in Ponce, as saying that after Hurricane Fiona in September, CORE sent one employee to the island and hired two people familiar with the situation. By early October, the NGO had raised at least $200,000 to help the victims and sent a consignment of humanitarian aid and essential goods to the disaster site. By the time the shipment arrived, a CORE employee had already left Puerto Rico and flown to Florida to organize relief for Hurricane Ian victims, and the NPO asked a local resident to receive the shipment and store it. According to this employee, the cargo remained unclaimed for about a week.

“In Florida, the story was much the same. <...> In October, a shipment of batteries and other materials worth tens of thousands of dollars arrived there, but no one was waiting for it, because CORE moved to another place after the shipment had been sent. Nobody conducted an inventory, and part of the parcel was returned to the sender, ”writes Bloomberg.

One of the biggest and most successful CORE projects was fundraising for Ukraine. Penn said he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky on the first day of hostilities and also participated in the filming of a documentary. A week later, the actor spoke on CNN on a program with Anderson Cooper and spoke about his relationship with Zelensky and the work of CORE in the region. "We're handing out hygiene kits, we're giving out cash, we're providing water to refugees as they come in," Penn said.

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This performance, as well as subsequent broadcasts on MSNBC and Fox, allowed CORE to raise, according to Bloomberg, tens of millions of dollars, but in Russia the actor was put on the sanctions list and banned from entering the country.

“But here again, the deployment of CORE resources did not feel like the mobilization during COVID (which the media generally praised as effective and clear). <...> CORE first went without any necessary planning to Poland with a handful of people, including two professional photographers. Little attention was paid to security, and even basic security protocols were sloppily followed,” writes Blomberg.

The publication notes that it is currently unclear exactly how many employees work at CORE. “Many former employees try to move on with their lives after CORE, describing their experiences as traumatic. Some say that because of the stress of working at CORE, they lost weight to unhealthy levels or took sick leave. Some current and former employees say they are frustrated by the lack of accountability for management missteps and feel their good intentions and hard work have been taken advantage of to show Lee and Penn in a favorable light.

Penn has visited Ukraine three times since the beginning of the special operation, the last time he visited Kyiv in November 2022 and handed over the Oscar statuette he received earlier to Zelensky. The actor was awarded the Order of Merit, III degree, which Zelensky awarded Penn at the end of August along with other Americans who support Ukraine. In addition, the president and the American actor visited the Walk of Courage, where there is Penn's name plate.