In 2008, Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas determined to ship his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a non-public boarding faculty within the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was removed from residence. For the earlier decade, he had lived with the justice and his spouse within the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken authorized custody of Martin when he was 6 years outdated and had just lately informed an interviewer he was “elevating him as a son.”
Tuition on the boarding faculty ran greater than $6,000 a month. However Thomas didn’t cowl the invoice. A financial institution assertion for the varsity from July 2009, buried in unrelated court docket filings, reveals the supply of Martin’s tuition fee for that month: the corporate of billionaire actual property magnate Harlan Crow.
The funds prolonged past that month, in accordance with Christopher Grimwood, a former administrator on the faculty. Crow paid Martin’s tuition your entire time he was a scholar there, which was a few yr, Grimwood informed ProPublica.
“Harlan picked up the tab,” mentioned Grimwood, who received to know Crow and the Thomases and had entry to high school monetary data by means of his work as an administrator.
Earlier than and after his time at Hidden Lake, Martin attended a second boarding faculty, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia. “Harlan mentioned he was paying for the schooling at Randolph-Macon Academy as nicely,” Grimwood mentioned, recalling a dialog he had with Crow throughout a go to to the billionaire’s Adirondacks property.
ProPublica interviewed Martin, his former classmates and former workers at each faculties. The precise whole Crow paid for Martin’s schooling through the years stays unclear. If he paid for all 4 years on the two faculties, the value tag might have exceeded $150,000, in accordance with public data of tuition charges on the faculties.
Thomas didn’t report the schooling funds from Crow on his annual monetary disclosures. A number of years earlier, Thomas disclosed a present of $5,000 for Martin’s schooling from one other buddy. It isn’t clear why he reported that fee however not Crow’s.
The schooling funds add to the image of how the Republican megadonor has helped fund the lives of Thomas and his household.
“You possibly can’t be having secret monetary preparations,” mentioned Mark W. Bennett, a retired federal decide appointed by President Invoice Clinton. Bennett mentioned he was pleasant with Thomas and declined to remark for the report in regards to the specifics of Thomas’ actions. However he mentioned that when he was on the bench, he wouldn’t let his lawyer mates purchase him lunch.
Thomas didn’t reply to questions. In response to earlier ProPublica reporting on items of luxurious journey, he mentioned that the Crows “are amongst our dearest mates” and that he understood he didn’t must disclose the journeys.
ProPublica despatched Crow an in depth checklist of questions and his workplace responded with a press release that didn’t dispute the info introduced on this story.
“Harlan Crow has lengthy been passionate in regards to the significance of high quality schooling and giving again to these much less lucky, particularly at-risk youth,” the assertion mentioned. “It’s disappointing that these with partisan political pursuits would attempt to flip serving to at-risk youth with tuition help into one thing nefarious or political.” The assertion added that Crow and his spouse have “supported many younger People” at a “number of faculties, together with his alma mater.” Crow went to Randolph-Macon Academy.
Crow didn’t deal with a query about how a lot he paid in whole for Martin’s tuition. Requested if Thomas had requested the assist for both faculty, Crow’s workplace responded, “No.”
Final month, ProPublica reported that Thomas accepted luxurious journey from Crow just about yearly for many years, together with worldwide superyacht cruises and personal jet flights world wide. Crow additionally paid cash to Thomas and his kin in an undisclosed actual property deal, ProPublica discovered. After he bought the home the place Thomas’ mom lives, Crow poured tens of 1000’s of {dollars} into bettering the property. And roughly 15 years in the past, Crow donated a lot of the price range of a political group based by Thomas’ spouse, which paid her a $120,000 wage.
“That is means exterior the norm. That is means in extra of something I’ve seen,” mentioned Richard Painter, former chief White Home ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, referring to the cascade of items through the years.
Painter mentioned that when he was on the White Home, an official who’d taken what Thomas had would have been fired: “This quantity of undisclosed items? You’d need to get them out of the federal government.”
A federal regulation handed after Watergate requires justices and different officers to publicly report most items. Ethics regulation specialists informed ProPublica they believed Thomas was required by regulation to reveal the schooling funds as a result of they look like a present to him.
Justices additionally should report many items to their spouses and dependent kids. The regulation’s definition of dependent baby is slim, nevertheless, and certain wouldn’t apply to Martin since Thomas was his authorized guardian, not his father or mother. The most effective case for not disclosing Crow’s tuition funds can be to argue the items had been to Martin, not Thomas, specialists mentioned.
However that argument was far-fetched, specialists mentioned, as a result of minor kids hardly ever pay their very own tuition. Sometimes, the authorized guardian is chargeable for the kid’s schooling.
“Essentially the most affordable interpretation of the statute is that this was a present to Thomas and thus needed to be reported. It’s widespread sense,” mentioned Kathleen Clark, an ethics regulation knowledgeable at Washington College in St. Louis. “It’s all to the monetary good thing about Clarence Thomas.”
Martin, now in his 30s, informed ProPublica he was not conscious that Crow paid his tuition. However he defended Thomas and Crow, saying he believed there was no ulterior motive behind the actual property magnate’s largesse over the many years. “I feel his intentions behind every little thing is only a buddy and only a good individual,” Martin mentioned.
[After this story was published, Mark Paoletta, a longtime friend of Clarence Thomas who has also served as Ginni Thomas’ lawyer, released a statement. Paoletta confirmed that Crow paid for Martin’s tuition at both Randolph-Macon Academy and Hidden Lake, saying Crow paid for one year at each. He did not give a total amount but, based on the tuition rates at the time, the two years would amount to roughly $100,000.
Paoletta said that Thomas did not have to report the payments because Martin was not his “dependent child” as defined in the disclosure law. He criticized ProPublica for reporting on this and said “the Thomases and the Crows are kind, generous, and loving people who tried to help this young man.”]
Crow has lengthy been an influential determine in pro-business conservative politics. He has given thousands and thousands to efforts to maneuver the regulation and the judiciary to the appropriate and serves on the boards of suppose tanks that publish scholarship advancing conservative authorized theories.
Crow has denied making an attempt to affect the justice however has mentioned he prolonged hospitality to him simply as he has to different pricey mates. From the beginning, their relationship has intertwined costly items and conservative politics. In a current interview with The Dallas Morning Information, Crow recounted how he first met Thomas. In 1996, the justice was scheduled to present a speech in Dallas for an anti-regulation suppose tank. Crow supplied to fly him there on his non-public jet. “Throughout that flight, we discovered we had been form of simpatico,” the billionaire mentioned.
The next yr, the Thomases started to debate taking custody of Martin. His father, Thomas’ nephew, had been imprisoned in reference to a drug case. Thomas has written that Martin’s scenario held deep resonance for him as a result of his personal father was absent and his grandparents had taken him in “below very comparable circumstances.”
Thomas had an grownup son from a earlier marriage, however he and spouse, Ginni, didn’t have kids of their very own. They pitched Martin’s dad and mom on taking the boy in.
“Thomas defined that the boy would have the most effective of every little thing — his personal room, a non-public faculty schooling, numerous extracurricular actions,” journalists Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher reported of their biography of Thomas.
Thomas gained authorized custody of Martin and have become his authorized guardian round January 1998, in accordance with court docket data.
Martin, who had been dwelling in Georgia together with his mom and siblings, moved to Virginia, the place he lived with the justice from the ages of 6 to 19, he mentioned.
Dwelling with the Thomases got here with an uncommon perk: lavish journey with Crow and his household. Martin informed ProPublica that he and Thomas vacationed with the Crows “no less than annually” all through his childhood.
That included visits to Camp Topridge, Crow’s non-public resort within the Adirondacks, and two cruises on Crow’s superyacht, Martin mentioned. On a visit within the Caribbean, Martin recalled using jet skis off the aspect of the billionaire’s yacht.
Roughly 20 years in the past, Martin, Thomas and the Crows went on a cruise on the yacht in Russia and the Baltics, in accordance with Martin and two different folks aware of the journey. The group toured St. Petersburg in a rented helicopter and visited the Yusupov Palace, the positioning of Rasputin’s homicide, mentioned one of many folks. They had been joined by Chris DeMuth, then the president of the conservative suppose tank the American Enterprise Institute. (Thomas’ journeys with Crow to the Baltics and the Caribbean haven’t beforehand been reported.)
Thomas reconfigured his life to stability the calls for of elevating a baby with serving on the excessive court docket. He started going to the Supreme Court docket earlier than 6 a.m. so he might go away in time to select Martin up after class and assist him together with his homework. By 2001, the justice had moved Martin to personal faculty out of frustration with the Fairfax County public faculty system’s lax schedule, The American Lawyer journal reported.
For highschool, Thomas despatched Martin to Randolph-Macon Academy, a navy boarding faculty 75 miles west of Washington, D.C., the place he was within the class of 2010. The college, which sits on a 135-acre campus within the Shenandoah Valley, charged between $25,000 to $30,000 a yr. Martin performed soccer and basketball, and the justice generally visited for video games.
Randolph-Macon was additionally Crow’s alma mater. Thomas and Crow visited the campus in April 2007 for the dedication of an imposing bronze sculpture of the Air Pressure Honor Guard, in accordance with the varsity journal. Crow donated the piece to Randolph-Macon, the place it’s a brief stroll from Crow Corridor, a classroom constructing named after the Dallas billionaire’s household.
Martin generally chafed on the strictures of navy faculty, in accordance with folks at Randolph-Macon on the time, and he spent his junior yr at Hidden Lake Academy, a therapeutic boarding faculty in Georgia. Hidden Lake boasted one instructor for each 10 college students and actions starting from horseback using to canoeing. These companies got here at an added value. On the time, a yr of tuition was roughly $73,000, plus charges.
The July 2009 financial institution assertion from Hidden Lake was filed in a chapter case for the varsity, which later went below. The doc reveals that Crow Holdings LLC wired $6,200 to the varsity that month, the precise value of the month’s tuition. The wire is marked “Mark Martin” within the ledger.
Crow’s workplace mentioned in its assertion that Crow’s funding of scholars’ tuition has “all the time been paid solely from private funds, generally held at and paid by means of the household enterprise.”
Grimwood, the administrator at Hidden Lake, informed ProPublica that Crow wired the varsity cash as soon as a month to pay Martin’s tuition charges. Grimwood had a number of roles on the campus, together with overseeing an affiliated wilderness program. He mentioned he was talking in regards to the funds as a result of he felt the general public ought to learn about exterior monetary assist for Supreme Court docket justices. Martin returned to Randolph-Macon his senior yr.
Thomas has lengthy been one of many much less rich members of the Supreme Court docket. Nonetheless, when Martin was in highschool, he and Ginni Thomas had earnings that put them comfortably within the prime echelon of People.
In 2006 for instance, the Thomases introduced in additional than $500,000 in earnings. The next yr, they made greater than $850,000 from Clarence Thomas’ wage from the court docket, Ginni Thomas’ pay from the Heritage Basis and ebook funds for the justice’s memoir.
It seems that in some unspecified time in the future in Martin’s childhood, Thomas was paying for personal faculty himself. Martin informed ProPublica that Thomas offered his Corvette — “his most prized automotive” — to pay for a yr of tuition, though he didn’t bear in mind when that occurred.
In 2002, a buddy of Thomas’ from the RV neighborhood who owned a Florida pest management firm, Earl Dixon, supplied Thomas $5,000 to assist defray the prices of Martin’s schooling. Thomas’ disclosure of that earlier present, a number of specialists mentioned, might be considered as proof that the justice himself understood he was required to report tuition assist from mates.
“At first, Thomas was frightened in regards to the propriety of the donation,” Thomas biographers Merida and Fletcher recounted. “He agreed to simply accept it if the contribution was deposited immediately right into a particular belief for Mark.” In his annual submitting, Thomas reported the cash as an “schooling present to Mark Martin.”
