LETTER OF DEMAND TO THE ACNC
Hudson Cruze,
Claimant and Aggrieved CreditorTARGET ENTITIES:
The Trustees of the Christian Brothers (ABN: 54 810 571 582)
The Edmund Rice Foundation (ABN: 28 153 133 505)
Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) (ABN: 94 650 373 601)1. OBJECTIVE OF THIS COMPLAINT, This is a formal request for the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) to initiate an immediate statutory audit and enforcement action against the responsible entities of the aforementioned charities. This complaint provides evidence of an intentional, bad-faith exploitation of charitable corporate frameworks to shield massive wealth from legal liabilities, while misallocating charitable funds to prioritize known child sex offenders over the healthcare of the victims they created.
2. EVIDENCE OF MATERIAL BREACH: GOVERNANCE STANDARD 1 (PURPOSE & NOT-for-PROFIT NATURE)
Under Governance Standard 1, a registered charity must remain a not-for-profit and operate purely to advance its stated charitable purposes.
The target entities are in direct, severe breach of this standard due to the following structural financialThe "James Hardie" Asset-Shifting Apparatus:
Commencing in 2007 and accelerating through the current Supreme Court insolvency proceedings, the Trustees of the Christian Brothers executed a systematic corporate restructuring.
They transferred an estimated $2.28 billion in premium, lucrative private school property portfolios (including prestigious institutions like St Kevin’s College Toorak, St Joseph’s College Geelong, and Parade College Bundoora) away from the direct liability pool.
Fraudulent Nominal Considerations: These multi-million-dollar land assets were liquidated and transferred to separate corporate trust entities under the Edmund Rice network (including EREA) for unrealistic, artificial sale prices of exactly $1 each.
The Deceptive Purpose:
This financial manipulation was engineered to artificially strip the order's bank accounts, allowing them to declare a "creditors' scheme of arrangement," cry poor in a court of law, and place an administrative cap on survivor payouts.
Utilizing charitable tax exemptions to systematically shield billions from legitimate court-ordered creditors directly violates the core definition of operating for a bona fide charitable purpose.
3. EVIDENCE OF MATERIAL BREACH: GOVERNANCE STANDARD 5 (DUTIES OF OFFICERS)
Governance Standard 5 strictly mandates that a charity’s responsible officers must act in good faith, with care and diligence, and in the best interests of the charity’s benevolent purpose. The directors and trustees have flagrantly violated this duty through an evil, morally corrupt allocation of remaining charitable wealth.
Funding Active Abusers.
Unsealed court disclosures and internal financial ledgers show that the Christian Brothers continue to fully bankroll the housing, everyday lifestyles, medical bills, and premium healthcare of over 100 known and convicted child sex offenders inside their ranks (including notorious predators Kevin John Lynch, Francis "Frank" Cable, and John Baptist "Jack" McGoldrick)
under the internal guise of a "Gospel imperative to protect their own."Defunding Survivors: Simultaneously, the order has abruptly cancelled and terminated the funding for vital clinical rehabilitation sessions for survivors—including my own treatment with forensic psychologist Nick Smith—which are desperately required to manage the lifelong trauma inflicted by their predator Donald Pascal Alford at St Patrick’s Boarding School.
4. UNENFORCEABLE SHIELDING OF TAX EXEMPTIONS.
The Edmund Rice Foundation’s recent face-saving backtrack to guarantee payouts does not erase the fact that a multi-billion-dollar network attempted to execute a devious insolvency scam to silence victims and protect corporate asset values.
Funding the luxury retirement of 100 child molesters while cutting off the medical psychology of their victims is a gross misuse of public, tax-exempt funds.
DEMAND FOR ACTION:
I demand the ACNC immediately launch a formal investigation into these $1 asset transactions, audit the order’s perpetrator-funding ledgers, and permanently strip both the Trustees of the Christian Brothers and the Edmund Rice Foundation of their tax-exempt status.
Yours sincerely
Regards
Hudson Cruze