Money donated to the Legal Defense Fund will be routed to the client trust fund of Ellen Mariani’s long-time California attorney, Bruce Leichty, www.leichtylaw.com. Leichty, already admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, has represented Mariani since 2007. Mrs. Mariani was previously represented by numerous attorneys in New York and New Hampshire including attorneys of considerable prominence, and there were issues of trust and competence with all of them. Bruce Leichty has the confidence of Mariani and of all of the members of the Committee for the Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund. The $11,000 sought by the Legal Defense Fund, to be applied to both costs and fees of Leichty, was a figure established in circumstances of exhausted resources pursuant to confidential attorney-client conversations between Mrs. Mariani and Leichty, neither of whom in 2007 had bargained for a Supreme Court appeal or litigation lasting more than five years.
If the funds raised are not sufficient to allow a Supreme Court appeal, or if donated funds exceed what is needed for the petition to the Supreme Court and/for further proceedings before that Court, those funds will be applied to the costs and fees of Leichty as Mrs. Mariani’s counsel in New Hampshire, where he is already admitted “pro hac vice,” so that her financial interests under the existing settlement can be protected from anticipated further attacks. (Ellen has ongoing litigation in the New Hampshire Probate Court.)
-Vincent Gillespie, Secretary-Treasurer of the Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund
Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund 
Why is this not a 501c3? If it is, it should be stated as so.
It is not set up as a 501c3. However, all funds collected went to Ellen Mariani and Bruce Leichty. There is no overhead cost (nor salaries nor any other such costs) to the Fund at all because the committee members worked on a volunteer basis. Any incidental costs (such as the cost of registering the website name) were paid out of pocket by me, Vincent Gillespie. The Fund itself used none of the donations collected at all. (Actually, all of the committee members, including me, have donated to the fund.) So I don’t believe there is nor was any need to set up the Fund as a 501c3.