Day: February 10, 2005

Florida is looking into the money behind the fight to keep Terri Schiavo on life support. Her parents’ Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation is receiving funding from big right to life groups, but what it’s doing with that money isn’t clear.

According to a story in the Palm Beach Post, donations are being solicited at terrisfight.org to, “offset some of the expenses associated with protecting Terri.”

“While the Web site says the donations help offset legal expenses, the majority of the Schindlers’ representation during the protracted legal struggle with their daughter’s husband, Michael Schiavo, has been paid for by two anti-abortion groups — the Life Legal Defense Foundation and the Alliance Defense Fund — according to the Schindlers’ current attorney, Barbara Weller.”

The California-based groups promote the usual hot button, right-wing agendas.

“Alliance Defense Fund ‘is funding litigation that is going on to confront and challenge the radical legal agenda advocating homosexual behavior, defending parental rights, and to restore the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion,’ IRS documents read. “

Schiavo’s parents never filed state paperwork to solicit donations, and the money does not seem to be paying the legal bills.

“…attorneys for the Schindlers offered conflicting statements of how much they have been paid and how much has been spent fighting on behalf of Terri. “

Jeb Bush jumped in to “save” Terri’s life when her husband attempted to unhook her in 2003. He exerted his power with the Florida legislature, getting them to pass a law that Republican Senate President Jim King later called one of the worst decisions of his life.

The law was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court, and despite being argued by Ken Connor, the former head of the Family Research Council, the U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case, letting the lower court decision stand. But Jeb continues to interfere in the matter, vowing to force Terri to remain on a feeding tube and entertaining suggestions he actually take her into “protective custody.”

Don’t know if this story is getting much play outside the advertising community, but it should, for comic relief if nothing else. The huge firm Ogilvy & Mather is defending itself against charges it overbilled the Clinton Administration’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

According to Ad Age online, an O&M exec sought in late 1999 to hide problems with the company’s financials by shifting billing time from other accounts to the government.

Testifying in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the FBI’s John Sardone presented a set of timesheets for Rosalinde Rago, Ogilvy’s former director of research and planning who died last year. He told the jury that the handwriting on written orders on the timesheets telling Ms. Rago to “Put Huggies and Wings time on ONDCP” matched handwriting samples provided to prosecutors by Ms. Seifert.

For all the clients who ever suspected they were being overcharged, this case provides plenty to worry about. As for O&M, it’s going to take a lot of Huggies and Wings to soak up all the hot water they’re in.