According to the lawsuit, the Project Veritas board of directors placed O’Keefe on paid leave on Feb. 6, following accusations that the founder “behaved unprofessionally during team meetings, including by screaming at coworkers and belittling them and their contributions to Project Veritas.” In February, the nonprofit’s board received a memo outlining his alleged pattern of unprofessional workplace conduct, signed by 16 employees, or about a third of the Project Veritas staff.
Wednesday’s lawsuit also states that the board required him to “surrender his company credit card” and restricted his “access to proprietary information, including donor lists,” while still indicating that he remained a CEO and board member. Despite the restrictions, the suit alleges that O’Keefe continued to use the company card for personal expenses in the amount of approximately $19,000.
Less than two weeks after he was suspended, O’Keefe announced the launch of a new, Project Veritas-like group called O’Keefe Media Group (OMG). The lawsuit accused O’Keefe of continuing “to solicit Project Veritas’s donors, employees and contractors, in direct violation of his Employment Agreement, for and on behalf of OMG.”
