Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, executive director of Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City, was indicted by a federal grand jury on 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering, making her the BLM Oklahoma City leader indicted in a December 2025 case alleging she embezzled at least $3.15 million in donated protester bail funds. Prosecutors say she diverted the money to buy six Oklahoma City properties, take Caribbean trips, purchase a vehicle, and run up tens of thousands of dollars in retail and food-delivery charges. She has pleaded not guilty, is represented by federal public defenders, and is awaiting trial in the Western District of Oklahoma.
The Federal Charges
The 25-count indictment was returned on December 3, 2025, and unsealed on December 11 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. The FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office and IRS Criminal Investigation led the investigation.
Each wire fraud count carries up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Each money laundering count carries up to 10 years and a fine of $250,000 or twice the value of the property involved. The case is United States v. Dickerson, No. 5:25-cr-00499, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jodi Warmbrod Dishman.
Where the Money Came From
Black Lives Matter OKC was never a registered 501(c)(3), according to prosecutors. It operated under a fiscal sponsorship with the Alliance for Global Justice, an Arizona nonprofit that collected tax-deductible donations on the chapter’s behalf. AFGJ required that all funds be used for tax-exempt purposes and barred real estate purchases without its consent.
After the murder of George Floyd in spring 2020, national bail funds routed millions through AFGJ to BLM OKC to post pretrial bail for arrested demonstrators. The three largest contributors were the Community Justice Exchange, which provided roughly $4.7 million; the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which gave $350,000; and the Massachusetts Bail Fund, which donated $300,000. More than $5.6 million flowed through the organization in total.
Much of that money was initially used as intended. When criminal cases were resolved and courts returned the posted bail, the national funders generally let BLM OKC keep the returned money to run a revolving bail fund or support other social justice work. The indictment alleges that rather than depositing those returned checks into the organization’s accounts, Dickerson deposited at least $3.15 million directly into her personal bank accounts between June 2020 and October 2025.
How Prosecutors Say the Money Was Spent
The indictment describes a pattern of personal enrichment. Dickerson allegedly used the diverted funds to buy six real properties in Oklahoma City, some titled in her name and others held by Equity International LLC, a company she registered with the Oklahoma Secretary of State in September 2022 and exclusively controlled. Properties acquired through Equity International included homes on NE 63rd Street (about $231,000), NE 53rd Street (about $119,000), and NE 13th Street (about $87,000).
Beyond real estate, prosecutors say the money paid for recreational trips to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic for Dickerson and associates, a 2021 Hyundai Palisade, at least $50,000 on services such as DoorDash, and tens of thousands of dollars at Nordstrom, Macy’s, Amazon, Best Buy, and Bob Mills Furniture.
The indictment also details early diversions. Between mid-June and early July 2020, Dickerson allegedly moved roughly $79,000 and $32,000 from the BLM OKC PayPal account into two of her own PayPal accounts, plus about $39,000 from the organizational PayPal to her personal checking account. During the first two weeks of July 2020, AFGJ transferred more than $3.5 million in donated funds directly into Dickerson’s personal checking account, according to reporting by The Frontier.
To conceal the scheme, prosecutors say Dickerson submitted false annual reports to AFGJ by interstate wire, certifying that all funds had been used exclusively for tax-exempt purposes while failing to disclose any personal spending.
Earlier Warnings From Local Protesters
Concerns about BLM OKC’s finances surfaced years before the indictment. In October 2020, five demonstrators known as the “Prater 5,” including journalist Tyreke Baker, held a press conference alleging the organization had misspent protester bail money. Baker, who had been arrested during the May 2020 protests, published a timeline on his website, The Black Times, arguing the numbers on how many people were bailed out “didn’t add up.” He told The Frontier: “They used the pain of the community to further benefit themselves.”
Baker said he received death threats after speaking publicly. Other demonstrators who had been bailed out said their concerns were ignored for years. One anonymous protester told The Frontier they would not cooperate with reporters because “no one was there to help while all this was going on.”
Federal agents raided Dickerson’s home in August 2025, months before the indictment was unsealed.
Dickerson’s Response
After the indictment became public on December 11, 2025, Dickerson posted a video to Facebook saying her legal team had advised her not to comment. She spoke anyway, framing the charges as common for activists: “When they come against you, like they have come against so many, that is their acknowledgement, whether they want it to be or not, that you are doing good work.” The video was later deleted.
Dickerson told the court she could not afford to hire counsel and is represented by federal public defenders Jeffrey M. Byers and Sanjuanita A. Martinez.
Current Case Status
A jury trial was originally set for January 2026 and was continued to the March 2026 docket. Court records show the case remained active through at least mid-2026, with a withdrawal-of-attorney filing in late June 2026. The Frontier reported a trial date of December 2026, though the publicly available docket does not confirm a specific current setting.
None of the three national bail funds that supplied most of BLM OKC’s money, the Community Justice Exchange, the Massachusetts Bail Fund, or the Minnesota Freedom Fund, responded to press inquiries about the indictment or their oversight of the returned funds.
Relationship to the National BLM Organization
The charges against Dickerson concern the Oklahoma City chapter alone. The BLM Global Network Foundation has stated that it operates on a “decentralized leadership model” in which local chapters function independently of the national organization, and a spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations against Dickerson. The foundation has said separately that it “is not a target of any federal criminal investigation.” As of late 2025, no charges had been filed against the national foundation or its current leadership.