A serious financial scandal has emerged from the Austin Sai Baba Temple. The temple’s management team is alleged to have misappropriated Rs 17 crore.
Two key persons, NRIs Kishore and Balaji, have been named as central figures in this siphoning of money.
Shockingly, even members of the white community, including Jill Edwards, have been implicated in this matching grants scam, according to reports.
The controversy traces back to the early days when Jill Edwards and her husband Kraig Edwards first initiated the purchase of 5 acres of land and helped start the temple.
They invited several families to become trustees, each contributing between $10,000–$20,000. Everything ran smoothly until Kraig’s death.
Afterward, Kishore and Balaji reportedly joined hands with Jill and began misusing the matching grants scheme.
The scam involved fraudulent use of employees from companies such as Apple, Visa and Dell to obtain matching grants in the temple’s name. This scheme is now under investigation by both the FBI and IRS.
Similar matching grants scams have previously been reported in several American Telugu associations. In fact, NATA was shut down for this very reason, and TANA is also under scrutiny.
Whistleblowers have further revealed that large portions of the funds were diverted to personal expenses and shell companies, making this case even more serious.
Currently, Jill, who remarried after Kraig’s death, is reported to be absconding from Austin.
