Baton Rouge media are reporting that The Colomb Foundation along with Serenity 67, which have connections to state Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb, have been given until Wednesday of next week to show how they spent more than $700,000 combined over the last six years.
Dené Colomb
A Lafayette nonprofit foundation established in the memory of a woman murdered in 2002 by the so-called South Louisiana Serial Killer is one of two tied to a state senator given a deadline by the state treasurer to submit details on how it spent hundreds of thousands of state dollars.
Baton Rouge media are reporting that The Colomb Foundation along with Serenity 67, which have connections to state Sen. Yvonne Dorsey-Colomb, were given until Wednesday of next week to show how they spent more than $700,000 combined over the last six years. The bulk of the money went to The Colomb Foundation.
According to news station WBRZ:
During the 2007 legislative session, then-Representative Dorsey-Colomb sat on the House Appropriations Committee when The Colomb Foundation received $300,000 for elderly services and community outreach. Serenity 67 was given $150,000 for similar services. Neither properly documented how they spent those funds, according to the state treasurer.
Three years later, after the legislature cut out funding for most NGOs, the Lafayette-based Colomb Foundation still received another $276,694.00 from the state directed through East Baton Rouge Parish.
The Colomb Foundation was established in 2003 following the November 2002 rape-murder of 23-year-old Dené Colomb, whose body was found near Scott by a hunter. Colomb's car was found in Grand Coteau near the cemetery where her adoptive mother, who had died a few months earlier of breast cancer, is buried. Convicted serial killer Derrick Todd Lee was linked to Colomb's murder by DNA, although he was never tried for the crime in Lafayette. He was convicted for two murders in East and West Baton Rouge parishes and is on death row at Angola State Penitentiary.
Dené Colomb's adoptive father, Sterling Colomb, began the foundation in her honor. He later married then-state Rep. Yvonne Dorsey.
According to its website, The Colomb Foundation offers health fairs, teen summits and activities centered around breast cancer awareness. It also owns an event center in Arnaudville that is rented for wedding receptions, family reunions and the like.