Billionaire Harlan Crow Paid for Clarence Thomas’s Great-Nephew’s Private School

In 2008, Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas determined to ship his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a personal boarding faculty within the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was removed from residence. For the earlier decade, he had lived with the justice and his spouse within the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken authorized custody of Martin when he was 6 years outdated and had lately instructed an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”

Tuition on the boarding faculty ran greater than $6,000 a month. However Thomas didn’t cowl the invoice. A bank statement for the college from July 2009, buried in unrelated courtroom filings, reveals the supply of Martin’s tuition fee for that month: the corporate of billionaire actual property magnate Harlan Crow.

The funds prolonged past that month, in line with Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator on the faculty. Crow paid Martin’s tuition all the time he was a pupil there, which was a couple of yr, Grimwood instructed ProPublica.

“Harlan picked up the tab,” mentioned Grimwood, who obtained to know Crow and the Thomases and had entry to highschool monetary info by way of his work as an administrator.

Earlier than and after his time at Hidden Lake, Martin attended a second boarding faculty, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. “Harlan mentioned he was paying for the tutoring at Randolph-Macon Academy as effectively,” Grimwood mentioned, recalling a dialog he had with Crow throughout a go to to the billionaire’s Adirondacks property.

ProPublica interviewed Martin, his former classmates and former employees at each colleges. The precise whole Crow paid for Martin’s schooling over time stays unclear. If he paid for all 4 years on the two colleges, the value tag may have exceeded $150,000, in line with public information of tuition charges on the colleges.

Thomas didn’t report the tutoring funds from Crow on his annual monetary disclosures. A number of years earlier, Thomas disclosed a gift of $5,000 for Martin’s schooling from one other good friend. It’s not clear why he reported that fee however not Crow’s.

The tutoring funds add to the image of how the Republican megadonor has helped fund the lives of Thomas and his household.

“You may’t be having secret monetary preparations,” mentioned Mark W. Bennett, a retired federal decide appointed by President Invoice Clinton. Bennett mentioned he was pleasant with Thomas and declined to remark for the report in regards to the specifics of Thomas’ actions. However he mentioned that when he was on the bench, he wouldn’t let his lawyer buddies purchase him lunch.

Thomas didn’t reply to questions. In response to earlier ProPublica reporting on items of luxurious journey, he said that the Crows “are amongst our dearest buddies” and that he understood he didn’t must disclose the journeys.

ProPublica despatched Crow an in depth checklist of questions and his workplace responded with a statement that didn’t dispute the info offered on this story.

“Harlan Crow has lengthy been passionate in regards to the significance of high quality schooling and giving again to these much less lucky, particularly at-risk youth,” the assertion mentioned. “It’s disappointing that these with partisan political pursuits would attempt to flip serving to at-risk youth with tuition help into one thing nefarious or political.” The assertion added that Crow and his spouse have “supported many younger Individuals” at a “number of colleges, together with his alma mater.” Crow went to Randolph-Macon Academy.

Crow didn’t deal with a query about how a lot he paid in whole for Martin’s tuition. Requested if Thomas had requested the help for both faculty, Crow’s workplace responded, “No.”

Final month, ProPublica reported that Thomas accepted luxury travel from Crow nearly yearly for many years, together with worldwide superyacht cruises and personal jet flights all over the world. Crow additionally paid cash to Thomas and his kin in an undisclosed real estate deal, ProPublica discovered. After he bought the home the place Thomas’ mom lives, Crow poured tens of hundreds of {dollars} into bettering the property. And roughly 15 years in the past, Crow donated much of the budget of a political group based by Thomas’ spouse, which paid her a $120,000 wage.

“That is manner outdoors the norm. That is manner in extra of something I’ve seen,” mentioned Richard Painter, former chief White Home ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, referring to the cascade of items over time.

Painter mentioned that when he was on the White Home, an official who’d taken what Thomas had would have been fired: “This quantity of undisclosed items? You’d need to get them out of the federal government.”

A federal regulation handed after Watergate requires justices and different officers to publicly report most items. Ethics regulation specialists instructed ProPublica they believed Thomas was required by regulation to reveal the tutoring funds as a result of they look like a present to him.

Justices additionally should report many items to their spouses and dependent kids. The regulation’s definition of dependent little one is slim, nevertheless, and certain wouldn’t apply to Martin since Thomas was his authorized guardian, not his mother or father. The most effective case for not disclosing Crow’s tuition funds could be to argue the items have been to Martin, not Thomas, specialists mentioned.

However that argument was far-fetched, specialists mentioned, as a result of minor kids not often pay their very own tuition. Sometimes, the authorized guardian is answerable for the kid’s schooling.

“Essentially the most affordable interpretation of the statute is that this was a present to Thomas and thus needed to be reported. It’s frequent sense,” mentioned Kathleen Clark, an ethics regulation knowledgeable at Washington College in St. Louis. “It’s all to the monetary advantage of Clarence Thomas.”

Martin, now in his 30s, instructed ProPublica he was not conscious that Crow paid his tuition. However he defended Thomas and Crow, saying he believed there was no ulterior motive behind the actual property magnate’s largesse over the many years. “I believe his intentions behind the whole lot is only a good friend and only a good particular person,” Martin mentioned.

[After this story was published, Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas who has also served as Ginni Thomas’ lawyer, released a statement. Paoletta confirmed that Crow paid for Martin’s tuition at both Randolph-Macon Academy and Hidden Lake, saying Crow paid for one year at each. He did not give a total amount but, based on the tuition rates at the time, the two years would amount to roughly $100,000.

Paoletta said that Thomas did not have to report the payments because Martin was not his “dependent child” as defined in the disclosure law. He criticized ProPublica for reporting on this and said “the Thomases and the Crows are kind, generous, and loving people who tried to help this young man.”]

Crow has lengthy been an influential determine in pro-business conservative politics. He has given hundreds of thousands to efforts to maneuver the regulation and the judiciary to the correct and serves on the boards of assume tanks that publish scholarship advancing conservative authorized theories.

Crow has denied making an attempt to affect the justice however has said he prolonged hospitality to him simply as he has to different expensive buddies. From the beginning, their relationship has intertwined costly items and conservative politics. In a latest interview with The Dallas Morning News, Crow recounted how he first met Thomas. In 1996, the justice was scheduled to offer a speech in Dallas for an anti-regulation assume tank. Crow provided to fly him there on his non-public jet. “Throughout that flight, we came upon we have been form of simpatico,” the billionaire mentioned.

The next yr, the Thomases started to debate taking custody of Martin. His father, Thomas’ nephew, had been imprisoned in reference to a drug case. Thomas has written that Martin’s state of affairs held deep resonance for him as a result of his personal father was absent and his grandparents had taken him in “below very related circumstances.”

Thomas had an grownup son from a earlier marriage, however he and spouse, Ginni, didn’t have kids of their very own. They pitched Martin’s mother and father on taking the boy in.

“Thomas defined that the boy would have the very best of the whole lot — his personal room, a personal faculty schooling, plenty of extracurricular actions,” journalists Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher reported in their biography of Thomas.

Thomas gained authorized custody of Martin and have become his authorized guardian round January 1998, in line with courtroom information.

Martin, who had been residing in Georgia along with his mom and siblings, moved to Virginia, the place he lived with the justice from the ages of 6 to 19, he mentioned.

Residing with the Thomases got here with an uncommon perk: lavish journey with Crow and his household. Martin instructed ProPublica that he and Thomas vacationed with the Crows “at the least yearly” all through his childhood.

That included visits to Camp Topridge, Crow’s non-public resort within the Adirondacks, and two cruises on Crow’s superyacht, Martin mentioned. On a visit within the Caribbean, Martin recalled using jet skis off the facet of the billionaire’s yacht.

Roughly 20 years in the past, Martin, Thomas and the Crows went on a cruise on the yacht in Russia and the Baltics, in line with Martin and two different individuals conversant in the journey. The group toured St. Petersburg in a rented helicopter and visited the Yusupov Palace, the location of Rasputin’s homicide, mentioned one of many individuals. They have been joined by Chris DeMuth, then the president of the conservative assume tank the American Enterprise Institute. (Thomas’ journeys with Crow to the Baltics and the Caribbean haven’t beforehand been reported.)

Thomas reconfigured his life to stability the calls for of elevating a baby with serving on the excessive courtroom. He started going to the Supreme Court docket earlier than 6 a.m. so he may go away in time to choose Martin up after class and assist him along with his homework. By 2001, the justice had moved Martin to personal faculty out of frustration with the Fairfax County public faculty system’s lax schedule, The American Lawyer magazine reported.

For highschool, Thomas despatched Martin to Randolph-Macon Academy, a army boarding faculty 75 miles west of Washington, D.C., the place he was within the class of 2010. The college, which sits on a 135-acre campus within the Shenandoah Valley, charged between $25,000 to $30,000 a yr. Martin performed soccer and basketball, and the justice typically visited for video games.

Randolph-Macon was additionally Crow’s alma mater. Thomas and Crow visited the campus in April 2007 for the dedication of an imposing bronze sculpture of the Air Drive Honor Guard, in line with the college journal. Crow donated the piece to Randolph-Macon, the place it’s a quick stroll from Crow Corridor, a classroom constructing named after the Dallas billionaire’s household.

Martin typically chafed on the strictures of army faculty, in line with individuals at Randolph-Macon on the time, and he spent his junior yr at Hidden Lake Academy, a therapeutic boarding faculty in Georgia. Hidden Lake boasted one instructor for each 10 college students and actions starting from horseback using to canoeing. These providers got here at an added value. On the time, a yr of tuition was roughly $73,000, plus charges.

The July 2009 bank statement from Hidden Lake was filed in a chapter case for the college, which later went below. The doc reveals that Crow Holdings LLC wired $6,200 to the college that month, the exact cost of the month’s tuition. The wire is marked “Mark Martin” within the ledger.

Crow’s workplace mentioned in its statement that Crow’s funding of scholars’ tuition has “all the time been paid solely from private funds, typically held at and paid by way of the household enterprise.”

Grimwood, the administrator at Hidden Lake, instructed ProPublica that Crow wired the college cash as soon as a month to pay Martin’s tuition charges. Grimwood had a number of roles on the campus, together with overseeing an affiliated wilderness program. He mentioned he was talking in regards to the funds as a result of he felt the general public ought to find out about outdoors monetary help for Supreme Court docket justices. Martin returned to Randolph-Macon his senior yr.

Thomas has lengthy been one of many much less rich members of the Supreme Court docket. Nonetheless, when Martin was in highschool, he and Ginni Thomas had revenue that put them comfortably within the high echelon of Individuals.

In 2006 for instance, the Thomases introduced in additional than $500,000 in revenue. The next yr, they made greater than $850,000 from Clarence Thomas’ wage from the courtroom, Ginni Thomas’ pay from the Heritage Basis and guide funds for the justice’s memoir.

It seems that sooner or later in Martin’s childhood, Thomas was paying for personal faculty himself. Martin instructed ProPublica that Thomas bought his Corvette — “his most prized automotive” — to pay for a yr of tuition, though he didn’t keep in mind when that occurred.

In 2002, a good friend of Thomas’ from the RV neighborhood who owned a Florida pest management firm, Earl Dixon, provided Thomas $5,000 to assist defray the prices of Martin’s schooling. Thomas’ disclosure of that earlier reward, a number of specialists mentioned, may very well be considered as proof that the justice himself understood he was required to report tuition help from buddies.

“At first, Thomas was anxious in regards to the propriety of the donation,” Thomas biographers Merida and Fletcher recounted. “He agreed to just accept it if the contribution was deposited immediately right into a particular belief for Mark.” In his annual filing, Thomas reported the cash as an “schooling reward to Mark Martin.”