In June 2021, the Breaking Code Silence Board of Directors formally reviewed and voted on an application for $500,000 research grant to the Conrad Hilton Foundation. If approved, this grant would first be awarded to Breaking Code Silence and then transferred to the University of North Carolina Wilmington to manage the research project. This grant would provide funding for a 2-year research project into the TTI and both Athena Kolbe and Vanessa Hughes would receive a salary for this project. To the best of McNamara and Whiteley’s knowledge, the grant application was written almost entirely by Athena Kolbe and Vanessa Hughes.

Through a public records request with the University of North Carolina Wilmington, we received a copy of the grant application.

That grant application, which was reviewed and voted on by the board in June 2021 (and presumably submitted to the Conrad Hilton Foundation that same month), stated the following about IRB approval:

To the best of Whiteley and McNamara’s recollection, they also recall being told that the grant had received IRB approval from the University of North Carolina Wilmington before they voted in June 2021.

At the June 2021 board vote, the board consisted of Vanessa Hughes, Jennifer Magill, Boyles, McNamara, and Whiteley.

Since Vanessa Hughes was an interested person in the grant, she recused herself from that vote, while Jennifer Magill did not. To the best of McNamara and Whiteley’s recollection, they were never informed that Jenny Magill might be a potential interested party during their time on the board, nor did she recuse herself of any votes related to the grant during their tenure there.

According to public records on July 26th, 2021, Vanessa Hughes received an email from the Conrad Hilton Foundation notifying her that Breaking Code Silence had been awarded the research grant:

At some point after that July 2021 date, the Hilton Foundation transferred the amount of the grant to Breaking Code Silence.

According to emails produced by public records requests, Athena Kolbe emailed an internal budget for the grant on October 7th, 2021 with Vanessa Hughes CCed. In this internal budget, there was a line item that identified Jenny Magill as a “Project Admin” that would potenally be paid by the grant:

Later in October 2021, the Breaking Code Silence Board of Directors voted on the MOU between University of North Carolina Wilmington and Breaking Code Silence for the grant. At that time of the October 2021 vote, the board only consisted of four people: Vanessa Hughes, Jenny Magill, Boyles, and McNamara were board members. Once again to prevent a conflict of interest, Vanessa Hughes abstained from the vote as an interested party. However, Jenny Magill did not.

To the best of McNamara’s recollection, she was never informed that Jennifer Magill might be an interested party in the grant at that time or any other time during her tenure as a board member.  Note: According to California Corporate Code § 5227 (a), “not more than 49 percent of the persons serving on the board of any corporation may be interested persons.”

The funds were transferred from Breaking Code Silence to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in late December 2021.

We received a copy of the EAG Award notice through a public records request. It included some interesting information.

For example, it contained a copy of the contract between Breaking Code Silence and the Conrad Hilton Foundation, which states the contractual terms of the grant. One interest part of the contract stated that any changes to the grant agreement, including but not limited to changes “to the approved budget, scope of work, objectives, outcomes and other deliverables, the grant period, or payment and reporting schedule, must be approved in writing in advance by the Foundation” as you can see below:

Another strange thing on the EAG Award document was the following comment by the University of North Carolina Wilmington staff on February 14th, 2022:

This was particularly concerning since, according to the footnote in the grant application, presumably voted on by the Breaking Code Silence Board of Directors and submitted to the Conrad Hilton Foundation in June 2021, “IRB approval has already been received…“

As part of our public records request, we also received the following emails from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Athena regarding their attempts to contact her regarding the IRB and conflict of interest disclosure.

We also received the following email exchange from our public records request that appears to show that IRB approval had still not been approved on February 11th, 2022 – which is approximately 8 months after the Breaking Code Silence Board of Directors:

At some point, it appears from the public records that some funds were approved so Athena Kolbe may hire a team “to help her design the study and submit for IRB approval” as one can see below.

Another thing of note that we saw on the EAG Award was the following comment:

We aren’t entirely comfortable speculating on whether this comment is in relation to the next email we received from our public records request.

The following email was dated March 22nd, 2022 from Vanessa Hughes to Athena Kolbe with the subject line “UNCW Invoice.” Below is the email with the attached invoice.

Note: We cannot confirm if Vanessa Hughes‘ invoice was ever paid or not. We did not receive any additional correspondence related to this invoice.

On July 17th, 2022, one of Breaking Code Silence’s officers sent the following email to the University of North Carolina Wilmington asking that they transfer the grant funds to Barry University. It is requested that the University allow Breaking Code Silence to “handle all communications with the original funder regarding the transfer of this sub-award”

Based on the remaining records we received, the grant funds were mailed to Breaking Code Silence directly in late 2022.

However, we are left with more questions for Breaking Code Silence:

• Did the research project ever receive IRB approval from the University of North Carolina Wilmington IRB board in 2021 or even 2022?
• Did Athena Kolbe and Vanessa Hughes ever inform the Board of Directors that the University of North Carolina Wilmington had not approved IRB in 2021?
• If the application was submitted with the IRB note, didd Breaking Code Silence ever formally notify the Foundation that it did not have IRB approval at the time of the application?
• Did Breaking Code Silence receive approval in writing in advance from the Foundation to change the grant period to end later than 2023?
• Did Breaking Code Silence receive written approval in advance from the Conrad Hilton Foundation to move the grant funds to Barry University?
• What work did Vanessa Hughes complete by March 2022 for the research project to be paid $67,083.033 – allegedly before IRB approval had been recieved?
• Why did Vanessa Hughes not inform the board by at least the October 2021 vote that Jennifer Magill might become an interested party in the grant?
• Why did Vanessa Hughes allow Jennifer Magill to participate in grant-related board votes in October 2021?