Biting The Hand That Banks You?

The "Occupy" movement often complains that the mainstream media were late in covering protests in New York City's Zuccotti Park and across the country, and that journalists continue to marginalize them.

But Occupy protesters in Oakland, Calif., who have had their fill of coverage recently, might not mind a break from the press.

Occupy Oakland was slammed by a flurry of not-so-flattering press reports that the group deposited $20,000 in a Wells Fargo & Co. branch earlier this month, just days after the group staged a daylong protest in front of one of the bank's branches and broke some windows.

"The money is temporarily being placed into the Wells Fargo trust fund of lawyer Timothy Fong. It will stay there for less than two weeks while Occupy Oakland establishes the new, unincorporated account with either a credit union or a community bank," the group said in a Nov. 8 press release.

The irony-rich move no doubt provided bank executives with a moment of comic relief, following more than a month of protests from coast to coast attacking big banks.

A Wells spokeswoman declined to comment on the situation, saying simply that the bank "offers a lot of value to all of our customers."

What's happened to the money since then? At this point it's unclear, since Occupy Oakland — which has maintained an uneasy relationship, at best, with the press — never responded to several inquiries made by American Banker.

Notes from a Nov. 9 meeting posted on the group's website suggest that Occupy Oakland had plans to move the money as soon as the next day to the Bank of Alameda, a local institution. But if that's happened, the group has remained close-lipped about the transfer.

Fong, the lawyer responsible for depositing the money in a preexisting client trust account, submitted an open letter explaining himself to the group's open forum on Nov. 10.

"When I volunteered the use of the account I was balancing the possibility of bad PR, with the possibility of forestalling serious physical harm to people in the jail," said Fong. With a general strike planned for the next day, on Nov. 2, "I was informed that people had already faced seriously dangerous conditions in the jail."

The $20,000 was a donation from Occupy Wall Street in New York. Fong passed along the necessary banking information to the New York group on Nov. 3, though it did not transfer the money to the Wells account until Nov. 9, the letter says.

He wrote that opening an account for Occupy Oakland is not as straightforward as just strolling into the credit union down the street. The group needed to wait to register as an unincorporated association with California before it could open an account and deposit the money.

"Neither a bank nor a credit union will open a bank account for an organization without showing the relevant state paperwork," the letter says. "We are still in process of setting up an independent Occupy Oakland financial account."

Fong declined to comment beyond the letter.