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One of the leading opponents of the Washington Wizards leaving the District of Columbia is a colorful former crack cocaine dealer who has a history of being banned from working with the city government, until it turns to him in a time of desperation. And desperation is presently the name of the game, as the nation’s capital considers throwing at least half a billion dollars at the Wizards in an attempt to keep them in the city.
One of the leading opponents of the move is a veteran activist whose checkered past is consistently ignored in local coverage. Ronald Moten is frequently cited by local news for his activism with Don’t Mute DC, his successful movement to keep “go-go music playing in Shaw, despite opposition from residents at a nearby luxury apartment building.” Now, he’s threatening to go as far as shutting down basketball games if owner Ted Leonsis follows through with his plan to relocate games to Alexandria, Virginia.
“There will be no games down here. You will see the go-go float down here, and we will shut it down,” Moten vowed. “We will make it very inconvenient for games to proceed.”
For all the benefits a move could bring to Virginia, the departure of the Wizards would serve as the final blow to DC’s crime-ridden Chinatown neighborhood, which has seen a spate in highly publicized criminal activity that led to a spate of local businesses closing their doors. Just last month a man was robbed at gunpoint near the arena.
In going so far as to threaten shutting down games, Moten is working to advance the agenda of longtime ally Mayor Muriel Bowser, whose deputy mayor announced a voucher worth almost half a million dollars to Check It Enterprises, for which Moten serves as agent and governor, just weeks after he vowed to shut down Wizards games. Since 2019, Check It Enterprises has received over $4 million from various DC government agencies — including a single voucher for $2 million in 2020.
The organization’s name stems from the Check It gang, a group of gay and lesbian gangsters who “terrorized” people at the Gallery Place mMetro stop before switching to entrepreneurship and opening up a storefront in Southeast DC. Moten, who had been arrested for selling crack in 1991 and spent four years in jail, worked with the gang members to transition them from crime to selling clothing.
When I visited the storefront earlier this week, it looked pretty dilapidated on the inside for something that has received millions of taxpayer dollars. As I looked around, I did not see any clothes that were evidently for sale. I asked, for example, if I could buy a bumper sticker and was told they hope to have those ready by June. Unlike its interior, the facade looked put together, and was next to a building that prominently flew a Palestinian flag.
There is no evidence that Moten’s anti-Wizards relocation efforts are formally coordinated with the mayor’s office. But the relationship between the two goes back years. In 2019, when Mayor Bowser’s government started throwing money at Moten’s Check It Enterprises, she praised his earlier work with the “Peaceoholics,” a controversial group that he founded that was banned from operating in DC public schools after one of its staffers started sexual relationships with two teenage girls within weeks of working in a school.
That Peaceoholic, who was also a convicted murderer, was convicted of five counts of enticing a minor and sexual assault. Before it shuttered, Peaceoholics received more than $10 million from the DC government. The Peaceoholics, which Moten ran for years, put ex-criminals in public schools that DC felt its cops couldn’t adequately serve. The organization, however, was plagued by massive financial mismanagement. DC alleged that Moten and his founding partner, Jauhar Abraham, submitted false tax returns in order to secure grants to the tune of millions of dollars.
In 2016, Moten settled, promising to pay $10,000 in $200 monthly increments. While he did not admit wrongdoing, he “was prohibited from serving in any financial management role of any nonprofit organization in the District,” per the Washington Post, which noted a “striking about-face” from the city’s attorney general, who filed a motion in 2019 releasing Moten from further payments because, the paper said, “the city needs him.”
Bowser’s 2019 praise of Moten’s Peaceoholics came weeks after the city’s flip-flop — and she promised to grant him contracts in the future should the right situation arise. “People deserve second chances,” she said; her government has since showered his Check It Enterprises with millions of dollars. Prior to her praise, DC had only sent Check It Enterprises a single, $16,666.66, direct deposit. Since then, the gravy train has been flowing — and Moten’s latest activist efforts would directly benefit his political ally.
The decision to relocate — or not! — professional sports teams is big business, both for billionaire owners like Leonsis but also for local activists like Moten. Democrats in Virginia are working overtime to nix Governor Glenn Youngkin’s plan to take the Washington out of the Wizards (or, vice versa? — and no one seems to know how this battle between the billionaire and the scrappy taxpayer-funded local activist will pan out.
