Modest Needs Charity Founder Charged With Embezzling Funds for His Lifestyle

The head of a charity called Modest Needs was charged Tuesday with embezzling $2.5 million to rent a Columbus Circle high-rise, have cosmetic surgery and dine regularly at some of Manhattan’s most expensive restaurants.

The charity executive, Keith Taylor, was accused in a federal complaint of siphoning money donated through the charity’s crowdfunding platform into personal accounts, ducking more than $1 million in taxes and creating a fictitious board of directors populated with the names of unknowing acquaintances.

“Keith Taylor falsely claimed that donations to his charity would help working families with unexpected expenses that put them at risk of homelessness,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. He added that instead the defendant had “defrauded the charity’s donors and unconscionably took money from the pockets of those most in need.”

Mr. Taylor, 56, was released from custody Tuesday without having to post bail. Brian Ketcham, Mr. Taylor’s lawyer, said Tuesday evening that his client denies the charges and intends to clear his name.

Modest Needs, which Mr. Taylor founded in 2002, claims to provide “emergency grants to low-income workers who’re at risk of slipping into poverty,” according to its website. In 2009, Mr. Taylor told CNN he got the idea for Modest Needs after reflecting on a small but significant act of kindness that helped him pay his rent after a costly car repair. Sometimes, he said, $10 or $20 can help people make ends meet.

The organization’s YouTube page and website are filled with urgent pleas. In appeals to would-be donors, people describe heart-wrenching circumstances that prompted them to seek help from strangers, like child care costs, medical debt and looming evictions.

Modest Needs’s humble pitch to donors took off, as did Mr. Taylor’s profile.

During the six years starting in 2016, the charity brought in about $9.9 million in donations, according to the complaint. But of that, only $5.9 million was spent on business costs, distributed as grants, or paid to employees other than Mr. Taylor.

Prosecutors say that Mr. Taylor took money meant to help the most needy and instead spent it on some of America’s most expensive food.

Between 2016 and May of this year, Mr. Taylor spent more than $320,000 on meals and drinks at Manhattan restaurants, according to prosecutors.

In five years starting in 2017, the complaint said, Mr. Taylor spent more than $101,000 at Jean-Georges, a two Michelin star restaurant in Midtown, where one of the people falsely listed as a board member worked as a bartender.

The bartender told investigators that Mr. Taylor was a regular at the restaurant, sometimes visiting its bar twice a day. Prices at the restaurant range from $32 for a plate of pasta to $188 for a rib-eye steak for two.

Another favorite of Mr. Taylor’s was Per Se, a Columbus Circle restaurant with three Michelin stars and a nine-course tasting menu that costs $390. Prosecutors say Mr. Taylor spent more than $68,000 there. At Masa, one of America’s most acclaimed sushi restaurants, the complaint says Mr. Taylor spent $25,930 in the same period.

The complaint also says Mr. Taylor spent more than $300,000 on rent at a luxury high rise just minutes from the restaurants. His voter registration lists his residence as an apartment on the 30th floor of a building overlooking Central Park. Monthly rents for a two-bedroom unit on the upper floors range between $6,000 and $7,000, according to the real estate listing site StreetEasy.

Between 2020 and 2022, Mr. Taylor spent $63,000 on his own medical expenses, which included cosmetic surgery, according to the complaint.

Melanie Cochran, of Nashville, became a friend of Mr. Taylor’s almost two decades ago, and they have stayed in touch over the years.

His foundation even gave Ms. Cochran a few hundred dollars to cover the cost of her car payment, she said. She said she applied for the funds several months ago and the money was sent directly to CarMax on her behalf.

She said she was shocked by the charges.

“The foundation has helped a lot of people,” Ms. Cochran said. “He’s very smart and very kind, has a lot of empathy.”

Ms. Cochran said she last saw Mr. Taylor during a New York City visit about two years ago, during which they enjoyed an expensive dinner with plenty of drinks at Delice & Sarrasin, a vegan restaurant in Greenwich Village.

To her knowledge, the foundation was still operating when they spoke about a month ago, she said, although Mr. Taylor said it was going through a “hard time” with many people requesting assistance and few donors giving.

The new complaint isn’t the first time Mr. Taylor’s leadership has been called into question. In 2012, Charity Navigator, a website that rates nonprofits, issued a warning to prospective donors. It described a $26,000 loan from the charity to Mr. Taylor’s personal coffers that was itemized in the group’s tax filings.

Mr. Taylor sued Charity Navigator the following year, saying it had been retaliating against him after he questioned its methodology. He dropped the suit not long after. The warning has been removed from the site, and Modest Needs currently has a four star rating, the highest.

In 2014, American Express sued Mr. Taylor over more than $31,000 in credit card debt. The company did not pursue the case beyond the initial complaint, but three years later, it sued him again over an unpaid sum, just under $30,000, on the same account. That dispute ended with the court ordering Mr. Taylor to pay his outstanding balance and additional legal costs.

But Mr. Taylor’s Modest Needs maintained a high profile and solid reputation. In 2020, it was included in a New York Times article that suggested ways to help strangers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a CNN interview in 2002, Daryn Kagan, a former anchor, introduced Mr. Taylor as “just an average guy with a really big heart” trying to help people in need.

“Come on, tell the truth. You’re this high-rolling, really rich guy who’s spreading his money around, right?” Ms. Kagan asked Mr. Taylor, teasing.

“I wish,” he started to respond, before cutting himself off. “Not hardly.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.