04/05/10 Greenwich Residents Joe Howley And Peter Ryan Treated Unjustly By Angel Flight

Clash could imperil missions of mercy

Angel Flight of New England aviators, founder in power struggle

For the pilots who donate their time to Angel Flight of New England Inc., the mission — flying sick patients to medical appointments for free — has always been more important than how the organization was run.

That changed abruptly last year, when a power struggle erupted between the nonprofit’s founder and the board. Now, pilots worry the in-house upheaval could put Angel Flight at risk, with major donors threatening to withhold money, and each side complaining to the Massachusetts attorney general of improprieties by the other.

The battle started last summer, when Angel Flight board members objected to founder and executive director Lawrence Camerlin paying his daughter $80,000 a year for an outreach position....

....Camerlin said that he fired the directors because they had alluded to possible lawsuits without being specific. “We felt they were in violation of their fiduciary responsibilities. They wouldn’t give us information about claims likely to be filed against us,’’ he said.

Under Angel Flight’s bylaws, “members’’ of the organization have the authority to replace the board of directors. And the only two members of Angel Flight are Camerlin and his wife, Ruth.

Thomas A. McLaughlin, vice president at the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which consults to charities, said a founder should not have the power to fire a board.

“This is a highly unusual governance structure in a nonprofit public charity,’’ McLaughlin said....

...One of the organization’s biggest fund-raisers is Joe Howley, a former director at the center of the fight with Camerlin. A commodities trader from Greenwich, Conn., Howley first raised the issue of Camerlin’s daughter, Amy, at a board meeting in July. He was fired five months later.

Amy Camerlin, 34, started working for Angel Flight about 1999, her father said in an interview. She earned $78,840 in 2007, according to the latest tax filing....

....on Dec. 3, Angel Flight’s lawyer fired Howley in a letter. The reason: He alleged Howley had had an outburst in the hotel, late on the night of the fund-raiser, that “reflected poorly on the company.’’

E-mails between donors and pilots say Camerlin was alleging that Howley lashed out at the hotel staff for not delivering beer to a hospitality suite for an after-party with donors.

Directors and Angel Flight officials who were present that night said Camerlin did not witness the exchange between Howley and hotel staff, and exaggerated what took place.

“I don’t understand what I did to deserve the way that Larry treated me,’’ Howley said in an interview. He said he had tried to raise the issue of Amy Camerlin’s employment without hurting anyone’s reputation. “What he did in return for that was to take the most vicious track to embarrass and insult me and get rid of me.’’

Asked why he had not consulted with other directors before firing Howley, Camerlin said, “We never acted unilaterally in 14 years. This was the first time.’’

From there, events unfolded quickly. The remaining eight board members wrote to Camerlin, protesting Howley’s firing. Camerlin never replied, the board members said....

.....After the new year, the board proposed an emergency telephone conference for Jan. 11 to discuss Howley’s dismissal and the shuttering of the Woburn office without consulting the board.

But on Jan. 8, they all received letters from an Angel Flight lawyer, informing them they had been removed in a vote by the members — Larry and Ruth Camerlin.....

.....In February, a group of the fired directors and their lawyer went to Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office and detailed the firings, and alleged misuse of charitable funds, including for Amy Camerlin’s salary and the Camerlin family’s using an Angel Flight credit card for personal expenses, according to three people who were at the meeting.....

.....Former pilots and directors said they never wanted a fight with Camerlin; they just wanted to fly patients.

“I have no animus against Larry,’’ said Peter Ryan, a pilot and former Angel Flight director from Greenwich, Conn. “I’m just distressed at the sadness of all of this. In the end, the patients will suffer.’’

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