Following the release of child pornography investigation documents, philanthropist T. Denny Sanford has been removed from the Giving Pledge, Forbes reports. 

Worth an estimated $2.1 billion, the founder of South Dakota-based First Premier Bank signed the Giving Pledge in 2010. The philanthropist was investigated for child pornography in 2019. While the South Dakota Attorney General’s investigation into Sanford was closed in May 2022 without any charges filed, this past April, after a years-long legal petition by ProPublica and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the South Dakota Supreme Court published the search warrant affidavits, which revealed that investigators had found dozens of images in an email account they believed to be linked to Sanford. Sanford’s legal team, previously headed by current South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, filed documentation in January 2022 that they said showed that Sanford’s accounts were hacked. 

“These preliminary allegations were provided to law enforcement prior to law enforcement’s exhaustive investigation and its realization that various individuals had documented access to the electronic devices at issue, including signs of hacking,” Sanford’s lawyer, Stacy Hegge, said in a statement after the release of the affidavits. “While some claim releasing affidavits that reiterate these allegations constitute transparency, releasing preliminary allegations made prior to completing the full investigation only misinforms people and obscures the investigation’s conclusions that no prosecutable offense occurred.” 

Sanford is the second person to be removed from the Giving Pledge, the first being FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was removed in December after he was arrested and charged with defrauding investors with his cryptocurrency exchange. A Giving Pledge spokesperson told Forbes that Sanford was “removed from the Giving Pledge in May 2023,” indicating that the decision was made “in accordance with the spirit and intention of the Giving Pledge community.”

(Photo credit: JBarnes via Wikipedia, Creative Commons 4.0)