Ex-CFO files lawsuit charging ASPCA with misuse of funds & wrongful firing

Former CFO accuses ASPCA of overspending on “no-bid” contracts

            NEW YORK CITY,  New York––Former American SPCA chief financial officer Gordon Lavalette during the second week in May 2025 sued the ASPCA in New Jersey state court for alleged wrongful dismissal,  further alleging substantial ASPCA misuse of donated funds.

Detailed New York Post Manhattan civil courts reporter Peter Senzamici on May 21,  2025,  “Gordon Lavalette — who served as the ASPCA chief financial officer 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,  alleged Lavalette,   “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.”

Fired at daughter’s wedding

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,”  Senzamici summarized.

Rather than acting appropriately in response to his charges,  the Lavallette lawsuit says,  senior ASPCA personnel “acted in concert and aided one another…to deliberately sabotage his good name,  his reputation,  his employment and his career.”

Lavalette arrived at the ASPCA with a history of involvement in financial controversy at previous corporate posts,  including during nine years with the New Jersey Devils professional hockey team and toward the end of a two-year stint as chief financial officer and executive vice president with the Ion Media television network.

Five years at New York Racing Association

Five years with the New York Racing Association followed.  Inasmuch as horse racing is a major animal use industry,  Lavalette brought an unusual background to his ASPCA position,  but said he received “glowing performance evaluations and high-level praise,”   and that chief executive Matt Bershadker once said he wished Lavalette would “stay with the ASPCA for another decade,”  Senzamici wrote.

Be that as it may,  IRS Form 990 filings indicate that Lavalette started at the ASPCA earning $251,000 per year,  and left four years later making $426,000,  indicating a history of receiving substantial annual raises.

“In 2024,”  Senzamici  recounted,  “Lavalette claims he got a look at fundraising-related contracts,  and discovered ‘reckless squandering of donor-contributed funds,’  the suit states.”

Specifically,  Lavalette claims the ASPCA spent at least $340 million on no-bid vendor contracts between 2016 and his departure,   “just under the ASPCA’s entire annual revenue for 2023,  tax forms show,”  Senzamici noted.

ASPCA pledges “vigorous defense”

“The ASPCA told The Post,  Senzamici continued,  “that Syzmanski’s claims are ‘baseless’ and pledged to mount a ‘vigorous’ defense in the civil case.”

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

Recounted Senzamici,  “An email [included in the Lavalette filing] 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 reads.

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

“Leaky, moldy animal shelter”

The Lavalette lawsuit also says,  Senzamici wrote,  that ASPCA president Matt Bershadker “allegedly shot down Lavalette’s attempt to ditch a leaky,  moldy Upper East Side animal shelter,  calling the effort ‘a waste of time.”

This allegation appears to refer to the cramped five-floor ASPCA head office and adoption center at 424 East 92nd Street,  New York City.

Built in 1990,  424 East 92nd Street has been the only ASPCA animal shelter since the ASPCA gave up the New York City animal control contract in 1994,  along with the animal control shelter.  Most of the ASPCA administrative staff work from rented office space at 520 8th Avenue,  about four miles south,  near Times Square.

Other conflicts included Bershadker allegedly threatening to fire Lavalette after Lavalette took his concerns to the ASPCA board of directors,  and Lavalette refusing to “participate in an act of retaliation” against another whistleblower.

Animal transportation issues

“The tipping point,”   according to Senzamici,  “came after Lavalette refused to sign off on what he said was a ‘flawed’  routine audit that lacked critical information.”

Bershadker then fired Lavalette on May 12,  2025 “’so that the ASPCA could get a timely audit,’  the suit claims,”  Senzamici wrote.

“Before his firing,”   Senzamici mentioned,  “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.”

While describing different incidents,  the Lavalette charges echo those revealed by ANIMALS 24-7 in two 2020 reports,  Why is the ASPCA stonewalling about the deaths of 20 dogs in transport? and How the ASPCA cooked 26 dogs in a truck: source comes forward.

Bershadker:  paid over $1.1 million in 2023

ANIMALS 24-7 has also long been skeptical and critical of ASPCA fiscal management under Bershadker,  who was paid over $1.1 million in 2023,  according to IRS Form 990:  nearly twice as much as any other U.S. animal welfare executive.

         (See How––and why––did the ASPCA make the HumaneWatch hit list?,  Why did the ASPCA pres get $966,004, while we got $9.70 an hour?,  and CBS News affirms ANIMALS 24-7 exposés of ASPCA fundraising.)

Lavalette in October 2008 alleged on behalf of the New Jersey Devils that the Newark Housing Authority,  owner of the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey where the Devils play their home games,  that the Prudential Center lease owed the team $791,530,  against the cost of rent,  due to delays in completing the then-one-year-old arena and surrounding development.

Booker demanded that Devils pay their due

Then-Newark mayor Cory Booker,  now U.S. Senator Cory Booker,  responded by demanding that the Devils pay $2.4 million in back rent.

“We are confident that the Newark Housing Authority will pursue the appropriate course of action to ensure that the city and its residents receive their fair share,”  Booker told Maura McDermott of NJ.com in a prepared statement.

The dispute was eventually resolved.  The Devils continue to play in the Prudential Center.

Moving on to Ion Media as chief financial officer,  Lavalette in September 2016 alleged in a lawsuit that “he was pushed out by chief executive officer Brandon Burgess after complaining about the ‘toxic work environment’ and the network’s allegedly unethical business practices,”  reported Lia Eustachewich for the New York Post.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on July 29,  2019 ruled that Lavalette had presented sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial,  but six months later “dismissed Lavalette v. ION Media Network with prejudice and without admission of wrongdoing,”  Jeffrey Leon on February 4,  2020 reported for BloombergTax.com.

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