Wayne LaPierre, the embattled chief executive of the National Rifle Association, said yesterday that he had kept his organization’s recent bankruptcy filing secret from almost all its senior officials, including its general counsel, chief financial officer and top lobbyist. He also did not inform most of the N.R.A.’s board, the New York Times reported. LaPierre made the comments after taking the stand, virtually, at a trial in federal bankruptcy court in Dallas. Though the N.R.A. is solvent, it filed for bankruptcy protection in January in an audacious bid to circumvent regulators in New York, where the N.R.A. has been chartered for a century and a half. The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, had sued the association in August, trying to shut it down amid claims of mismanagement and corruption. She is also seeking tens of millions of dollars in misspent funds from LaPierre and three other current or former N.R.A. leaders. The nonprofit organization has been enmeshed in scandal for the last two years, with revelations of lavish spending by the N.R.A. and its contractors — on Zegna suits and luxurious trips Mr. LaPierre took to places like Lake Como in Italy and the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. Other benefits included chartered jets for him and his family and vacations on a contractor’s yachts, which were named Illusions and Grand Illusion.
