The money was supposed to reach people fighting addiction, people needing counseling, people living close enough to the edge that a nonprofit and a government grant could make the difference between getting help and going without it.
Instead, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb says more than $125,000 flowed somewhere else.
Into cash withdrawals. Into payments to nonprofit founder Allyson Abrams. To her spouse. To businesses connected to her real estate interests. And, according to a lawsuit filed by Schwalb’s office, Abrams used falsified invoices and checks that employees never received to keep District grant money coming.
“Nonprofit leaders cannot treat their organizations like personal slush funds,” Schwalb said. “Abrams misused government grant money and undermined efforts to support some of our community’s most vulnerable.”
Now the District wants its money back.
Schwalb has sued Abrams and the two organizations she founded, Empowerment Justice Center Corporation and Empowerment Liberation Cathedral, accusing them of breaking a settlement agreement that was supposed to resolve the government’s investigation without a lawsuit.
The 11-page complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court, says Abrams agreed to pay the District $110,000 in 11 installments. Eight payment deadlines have passed, according to the lawsuit.
The District says it has received nothing.
The lawsuit turns what began as an investigation into the handling of public money into a fight over an agreement Abrams had already signed.
From 2019 through 2025, the D.C. government paid Empowerment Justice Center and Empowerment Liberation Cathedral more than $475,000 for outreach, counseling and addiction treatment. Those government grants supplied nearly all the organizations’ funding during that period, according to the complaint.
Empowerment Justice Center, a Maryland nonprofit formed in 2017, was created to provide mental health care, housing assistance, HIV/AIDS services, education and pastoral care to historically disenfranchised communities. It dissolved in 2025.
Empowerment Liberation Cathedral, formed in the District in 2018, is a religious nonprofit. Abrams remains its leader.
“Abrams reneged on a 2025 settlement to repay the diverted funds, give up control over EJC’s funding, and step down from EJC’s board,” Schwalb wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Enough is enough. We are suing to enforce the terms of the settlement, recover the illegally diverted funds, and hold Abrams accountable.”
The Money Trail
The attorney general’s investigation began in 2024 and produced accusations that go well beyond sloppy bookkeeping.
According to the complaint, Abrams used District grant money intended for addiction treatment to supplement her approved salary through cash withdrawals, bonuses, advances and transfers to herself, her spouse and companies associated with her real estate business. The amount above her approved salary exceeded $125,000, the District alleges.
Investigators also say they found checks that existed on paper but apparently never reached the workers whose names appeared on them.
Between January 2021 and February 2022, according to the lawsuit, Abrams wrote several checks from an Empowerment Justice Center account that purported to cover employee salaries. Copies were then submitted to the District as support for two reimbursement invoices totaling more than $40,000.
The employees, the government alleges, never got those checks.
“In other words, the checks she wrote were fake, and staff members went unpaid by EJC,” the complaint states.
Investigators further concluded that the nonprofit repeatedly paid a caseworker late and that Abrams falsely told the D.C. agency funding Empowerment Justice Center that she was not under investigation after she had responded to an OAG subpoena.
The government’s investigation also accused the nonprofits of not performing some of the most principal duties required of such organizations, including holding board meetings and elections, keeping written records and maintaining proper oversight of money.
“Both nonprofits also failed to uphold basic tenets of nonprofit governance,” Schwalb wrote on X.
A Deal to Keep the Fight Out of Court
The dispute appeared headed for resolution late last year.
Abrams and the nonprofits entered into an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with the attorney general’s office, effective Dec. 19, 2025. Under the agreement, Abrams was to pay $110,000 to the District, relinquish control of nonprofit money and comply with restrictions designed to keep her and her spouse away from the organizations’ bank accounts.
The settlement required the organizations to close their existing bank accounts and move remaining money into new accounts approved by the attorney general’s office. Neither Abrams nor her spouse was to have access to those accounts for 10 years.
Abrams could remain the leader of Empowerment Liberation Cathedral because it is a religious organization. What she could not do under the agreement was continue controlling its money.
The District says it still has no proof that changed.
And the missed payments kept piling up.
Because two payment dates written into the agreement had already passed by the time it became effective, the complaint says Abrams’ first actual deadline was Jan. 10. She was supposed to pay $10,000 and another $10,000 on the 10th of each month afterward.
January passed. Then February. March. April.
By the time the attorney general went to court, the government said eight payments had been missed and not one dollar of the $110,000 had been paid.
The silence was not for lack of trying by the District.
Between Jan. 5 and Aug. 21, the attorney general’s office contacted Abrams 16 times, according to the complaint. The emails addressed upcoming deadlines, missed payments, instructions for paying and questions about donations Empowerment Liberation Cathedral continued soliciting online.
Abrams responded on multiple occasions, the lawsuit says, promising that money was coming and that payments would be made within days, sometimes that very day.
“Those promises have gone unfulfilled,” government lawyers wrote.
There was another problem.
Empowerment Justice Center had dissolved as a Maryland corporation in August 2025. Under the settlement, the organization was required to notify the attorney general if it dissolved and provide its articles of dissolution.
The District says that never happened.
Nor, according to the lawsuit, have Abrams and the nonprofits produced the banking information necessary to show that she and her spouse no longer control the charitable money.
Meanwhile, Empowerment Liberation Cathedral continues soliciting donations from the public.
Schwalb’s office is asking a judge to order Abrams to pay the full $110,000, plus interest, and force the defendants to produce bank records showing where nonprofit funds are held and who controls them. The District also wants its attorneys’ fees and costs covered.
The allegations remain accusations in a civil complaint, and the defendants will have an opportunity to respond in court.
In the meantime, Washingtonians are glad the Maryland resident and nonprofit owner is being held accountable and hope that more can be done to prevent another CEO like Abrams from receiving such funds.
“D.C. needs much stronger oversight over its grants and contracts, part 87494,” social media user and labor advocate Alex Taliadoros wrote on X in response to the attorney general’s announcement.
For Schwalb, the case comes back to where the money originated and whom it was supposed to serve.
“We’re holding her accountable,” he said, “and ensuring that she repays the District and its taxpayers the funds she unlawfully diverted.”
