Head of violence interruption program in Twin Cities charged with stealing $150,000 in employee wages

A community activist and spiritual leader in the Twin Cities whose nonprofit was tasked with de-escalating violent incidents in Hennepin County has been charged with stealing $150,000 in wages and illegally using $100,000 from county contracts to purchase office space in Brooklyn Park.

On Thursday, Bishop Harding Smith was charged with one count of felony theft by swindle and one count of felony wage theft in Hennepin County District Court.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing the charges that her office will not tolerate employee wage theft.

“Bishop Harding Smith failed to pay his employees what he agreed to as part of the contract with Hennepin County and then lied about it when seeking payroll expense reimbursements,” she said.

Jordan Kushner, who has represented Smith during this criminal investigation for the last two years, said the charges are “baseless.”

“They went through three different agencies; the first two didn’t find anything, and the county attorney kept looking for more,” Kushner said.

According to the criminal complaint, the charges against Smith followed an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension after former employees of Smith’s nonprofit, Minnesota Acts Now, filed wage-theft complaints.

Hennepin County ultimately paid Smith’s organization $538,842.90.

The investigation claims that contracts between the county and Smith showed he agreed to pay his employees $35 per hour for violence-interruption services, but payroll documents showed most employees were being paid $20 per hour. From August to December 2021, Smith allegedly paid his employees approximately $150,000 less than he reported to Hennepin County.

Minnesota Acts Now then used more than $100,000 in savings to purchase a building in Brooklyn Park for company use. The charges claim that was not allowed under the county contracts.

Kushner said Smith was under the impression he could use the county contracts for his organization, and that’s what he was doing when he tried to purchase the building.

“It’s not what you expect from a wage-theft case where someone is greedy and they’re taking money from the workers,” Kushner said. “He paid what he felt was a fair wage, more than what people doing that work would normally be getting.”

The charges claim that in 2021, when Smith’s contract with Hennepin County was being amended, he argued he needed to pay his employees $40 per hour because of the risky work they were doing patrolling violent areas. At that time, documents allegedly show the only people being paid the $35 per hour already stipulated by the contract were Smith and his wife.

Investigators also allege Smith claimed the violence-interruption program was running out of cash because it didn’t calculate payroll tax into its budget.

Smith’s first court date is set for June 16.

In recent years, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on alternative public safety units in Hennepin County.

But oversight and financial controls of government contracts with violence-prevention programs have come under intense scrutiny, especially in Minneapolis where a once nationally renowned violence-prevention program is in disarray, with even its most vocal City Council supporters demanding reform. That program is now on its third director in five years.

Smith has been at the center of community activism in the Twin Cities for more than a decade as bishop at the Spiritual Church of God in Robbinsdale and as the chief executive of Minnesota Acts Now. But in the last several years, he has been immersed in legal filings in Hennepin County.

Many of those originated from a long standing feud with Howie Dotson, a Twin Cities chaplain who has announced a 2025 run for Minneapolis mayor. In the past, Dotson has accused Smith of being a “tragedy opportunist.” Smith filed a harassment lawsuit against Dotson in 2023 and sought a restraining order.

Smith claimed that Dotson saw him on TV in 2015 and “has been harassing me ever since,” including following him to City Council meetings, showing up at his office claiming to be a federal agent and arriving at his church service in June 2023 wearing military fatigues to stage a protest.

Messages left with Dotson were not immediately returned Thursday.

Two months after Smith filed the restraining order, Dotson sued Smith for $1 million for violating his First Amendment rights over the church protest.

That lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Bridget Sullivan because Smith is not an agent of the government and, thus, cannot deprive someone of their civil rights.

Smith filed a countersuit after that decision claiming Dotson had defamed him and demanding a jury trial. The jury was asked to consider damages and awarded Smith $390,000 for Dotson’s defamatory claims. Dotson has filed an appeal in that case to the state Supreme Court.

In February of this year, Smith sued CBS News, WCCO and reporter David Schuman for defamation based on reporting Schuman had done around Dotson’s allegations against Smith and Minnesota Acts Now.

Court documents connected to that lawsuit show that Brooklyn Park had given Minnesota Acts Now a $1.2 million contract in 2022 for violence-interruption work. In 2023, Brooklyn Park decided not to renew its contract and Smith’s organization returned $200,000 in unused funds. At that time, Dotson began alleging Smith had committed wage theft.

WCCO reported on the story, including claims from several employees at a Brooklyn Park City Council meeting in May 2023, that they had been required to work 40 hours per week but were only paid for 23 or 24 hours and that wages were “inexplicably reduced from $25 to $20 per hour.”

Smith claimed in court filings that violence interrupters were paid for all hours worked but were invited to volunteer additional hours without pay.

That WCCO story also included that seven anonymous employees told Schuman they were afraid to go public with their claims because of fear of retaliation.

Around that time the Brooklyn Park Police Department opened an investigation into Smith over wage theft.

Last month, attorneys representing WCCO filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming it was frivolous and legally unsustainable under Minnesota’s Fair Reporting Privilege and the state’s new Uniform Public Expression Protection Act.

Twelve days later, Smith voluntary dismissed the lawsuit.

Deena Winter of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.