Top exec at ASPCA inhumanely fired after sounding alarm about ‘dangerous’ fraud at animal rights group: suit

The ASPCA’s chief financial officer was inhumanely canned while out for his daughter’s wedding — after he tried to blow the whistle on the prominent animal rights group’s allegedly shady financial practices, a new lawsuit claims.

Gordon Lavalette — who served as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ CFO starting in 2021 — claims the longtime non-profit dished out hundreds of millions in “illegal” no-bid contracts and ignored him flagging “dangerous violations” of animal safety law, according to his suit.

The ASPCA “preferred to violate the law as well as overspend millions of dollars with friendly vendors than to competitively bid those contracts and use the savings to help animals,” claims the papers filed last week in New Jersey state court.

ASPCA’s CFO Gordon Lavalette, 61, was sacked while he attended his daughter’s wedding last week — all because he tried to blow the whistle on alleged unethical and illegal financial practices at an animal welfare org, a new lawsuit claims. James Keivom

But when Lavalette tried to steer away from executive welfare and back towards animal issues, the ASPCA “acted in concert and aided one another to destroy (him) and to deliberately sabotage his good name, his reputation, his employment and his career,” the suit states.

Lavalette, 61, said he had “glowing performance evaluations and high-level praise,” with the CEO once expressing he wished him to stay with the ASPCA for another decade.

That all changed in 2024 when Lavalette claims he got a look at fundraising-related contracts, and discovered “reckless squandering of donor-contributed funds,” the suit states.

The organization had blown at least $340 million in donor dollars on no-bid vendor contracts since 2016 — “an alarming amount,” Lavalette claimed, according to an email filed with the suit. The number is just under the ASPCA’s entire annual revenue for 2023, tax forms show.

“The abandonment of competitive bidding led to (the ASPCA’s) annual squandering of tens of millions of donated dollars,” the suit claims — adding that it likely violated New York and New Jersey state laws governing non-profits.

The ASPCA told The Post that his claims are “baseless” and pledged to mount a “vigorous” defense in the civil case.

“Our Board of Directors took these matters seriously when they were first raised internally and engaged independent outside counsel to review them” — ultimately concluding that “our policies and practices are appropriate, lawful, and consistent with our mission to protect animals,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Lavalette, who had been the CFO of the organization since 2021, said the longtime non-profit gave out millions of “illegal” no-bid contracts and ignored his requests that these were “dangerous violations” of animal safety law. James Keivom

The court paper details numerous alleged issues with no-bid contracts — alongside several instances of the animal welfare group seemingly electing to give their stated mission a back seat.

The conduct “amounted to common law fraud upon the donors,” the suit claims.

An email from last September claimed that an IT executive tried to steer a $2 million no-bid critical infrastructure contract to a vendor who was a “friend.” 

When Lavalette discovered the vendor was unqualified and demanded a bidding process take place, “IT again recommended the same conflicted and inappropriate vendor,” the email included in the filing reads.

That “friend” then threatened to sue when they were not ultimately awarded the contract, forcing the ASPCA to settle for $50,000, the suit details.

The filing also alleges that CEO Matthew Bershadker became “irate” when another apparent whistleblower on the finance team mentioned that contract savings could go towards buying extra chow for pooches in ASPCA shelters.

“That’s like calling a black person the N word,” Bershadker — who makes roughly $1.2 million in annual compensation — allegedly said in response, the suit claims. 

And Bershadker allegedly shot down Lavalette’s attempt to ditch a leaky, moldy Upper East Side animal shelter, calling the effort “a waste of time,” the filing claims.

The tipping point came after Lavalette refused to sign off on what he said was a “flawed” routine audit that lacked critical information, and cites that refusal as why he was ultimately axed, according to the lawsuit.

Bershadker called Lavalette on May 12 — “while Lavalette was on vacation for his daughter’s wedding” — demanding that they speak.

The CEO “proceeded to terminate Lavalette so that the ASPCA could get a timely audit,” the suit claims. 

Before his firing, Lavalette claims he was booted from an internal safety committee after flagging animal transportation issues — including disconnecting a device logging driver hours from an ASPCA vehicle and a brake failure of a new, untested trailer, which almost caused a “catastrophic” crash.

Bershadker allegedly threatened to fire him last fall if Lavalette went to the board with his concerns, and proceeded to spread “false and negative performance criticisms” with board members, the suit claims.

Another executive allegedly attempted to coerce Lavalette to “participate in an act of retaliation” against a whistleblower, ordering the CFO “to read a verbatim script” filled with “false” negative feedback to the staffer — and then told him to fire the worker.

Lavalette refused to do both, his suit states.