A Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist has taken a plea deal in a Fargo, North Dakota, case in which she and her husband are accused of diverting taxpayer money meant for her nonprofit to family members, according to local news outlet InForum.
Faith Shields-Dixon, founder of the Faith4Hope Scholarship Fund, will plead guilty to three felony counts of theft out of five, InForum reported, citing a plea agreement she signed Oct. 1. The deal follows years of allegations of financial mismanagement by BLM leaders after their organizations received lavish funding.
Prosecutors accused Shields-Dixon of accepting $350,000 in grant money for the Faith4Hope Scholarship Fund, which was meant to assist low-income families, and directing $124,000 of it to businesses run by family members. Shields-Dixon told InForum that her sentencing hearing will reveal what precise illegal actions she will confess to.
“There, my attorneys and I will explain exactly what did and did not happen with respect to the grant funding I accepted from the city of Fargo and state of North Dakota,” Shields-Dixon said in a statement. “Then — and only then — should anyone draw any conclusions about me, my family and the decisions I made in this matter.”
An attorney for Shields-Dixon did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Her husband, Charles, faces his own felony trial for the case in November, according to InForum.
Shields-Dixon’s police-related advocacy included filing a complaint against the Moorhead Police Department in 2020, alleging that she was afraid for her life during a traffic stop and telling a police oversight board in 2024 that she had been unlawfully jailed in Fargo, Valley News Live reported.
Following George Floyd’s death in 2020, BLM leaders used their organizations’ funds to buy luxuries such as a massive Southern California mansion and to pay an art company run by the father of a BLM activist’s child to produce an expensive livestream event. BLM organizations have even dealt with internal disputes over money, including when fellow activists accused Black Lives Matter Grassroots Director Melina Abdullah in 2022 of spending the nonprofit’s funds on a vacation to Jamaica.
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