A previous version of this story said that a Los Angeles property owned by Black Lives Matter had been bought by a real-estate developer for $3.1 million and transferred that same year for $5.8 million. The Post has since learned that the public records it consulted listed the sale price incorrectly. Further research found that other records show that the real-estate developer bought it for the same amount that he transferred it to BLM — $5.8 million. The Post regrets the error.
The $6 million Los Angeles mansion purchased by the country’s top Black Lives Matter group sold for 250 percent more than the price of similar properties in its Studio City neighborhood.
BLMGNF bought the sprawling property, which features a separate sound stage, pool and guest house, in the fall of 2020 to be used as a creative “campus” and safe house for the group, according to a report in New York magazine on Monday.
BLMGNF paid in cash for the mansion, which is divided into two parcels.
The house was purchased by Dyane Pascall, a real estate developer who worked for Janaya and Patrisse Consulting, a for-profit firm run by BLMGNF co-founder Patrisse Cullors and her partner Janaya Khan.
On October 21, 2020, property records show that Pascall bought the mansion from televangelists Shawn and Cherie Bolz.
Pascall purchased the property two weeks after the California Attorney General approved a $65 million transfer from Thousand Currents, the charity which collected donations on behalf of BLMGNF. The group has delayed its reporting to the IRS, and not yet disclosed where that money has gone.
Two days after the purchase, on October 23, lawyers for the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie incorporated a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware named for the mansion’s address. Four days later — on October 27 — the home was transferred to the company for $5.8 million, records show. Property records also show that no transfer taxes were charged. BLMGNF is a tax-exempt charity.
Celebrities and the wealthy often create LLCs for privacy and to protect their assets from creditors.
“A review of property assessment records show the value of the mansion BLMGNF purchased skyrocketed while all the neighboring properties saw an average of less than a five percent increase,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center.
“This raises serious questions concerning the purchase price of the house and the way the transaction was handled through cash and a shadowy LLC,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s Virginia-based watchdog group amended a complaint against BLMGNF to the IRS and the California Attorney General after news of the luxury mansion purchase surfaced earlier this week.
Los Angeles County property assessment records consulted by The Post show the value of the two parcels combined as $3,321,580 on July 6, 2020, three months before Pascall’s purchase. That value nearly doubled after the purchase of the property. On Jan. 24, 2021, the assessment for the two parcels shot up to $5,888,000, records show.
Pascall told The Post Tuesday he could no longer remember the exact price that he paid for the property in 2020. “I paid the asking price,” he said, and refused to elaborate.
A woman who answered the phone at the Studio City office of Keller Williams, the listing agent, said that the sale was handled through their Encino, Calif., branch, which was liquidated last month. The stylish “farmhouse” which was built in 1936 and boasted visits from Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart, was 257.43 percent “more expensive” than similar homes in its Studio City neighborhood, according to realtor.com
The mansion served as the backdrop in a YouTube video recorded last June by three BLM leaders — Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah — who marked the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. The video, and a YouTube channel featuring Cullors have since been removed from the Internet.
“It’s because we’re powerful, because we are winning,” Cullors said of what she characterized as right-wing media attacks in the now-private video. “It’s because we are threatening the establishment, we’re threatening white supremacy.”
Cullors resigned from the group in May 2021, a month after The Post exclusively reported that she had gone on a $3.2 million real estate buying spree, purchasing properties in Los Angeles and a home in suburban Atlanta, complete with an airfield and airplane hangar. She sold that property in July 2021, property records show.
