UNITED STATES
Forward
Sam Kestenbaum
June 15, 2016
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is standing by his friend Marc Gafni, a controversial New Age guru and former rabbi accused of abuses of power through his career, including molestation of a teenage girl.
Mackey until recently sat on the board of Gafni’s think-tank, Center for Integral Wisdom. Activists have been pushing Mackey to publicly denounce Gafni.
In a recent statement given through a publicist Mackey said he did not condone sexual assault — but would believe Gafni was innocent until he was proven guilty, and that he would remain loyal to his friend.
“Loyalty and the presumption of innocence are important values to me, so I will not join those who are condemning him,” Mackey said. “I am, at once, presuming Marc’s innocence and firmly standing against what he’s accused of.”
The statement appeared first in a LinkedIn post by Nancy Levine, a recruiter in Marin County who has been blogging regularly about Gafni. Julie van Amerongan, director of programs and events of Conscious Capitalism a business ethics group at which Mackey is a board member, emailed the statement and verified it in a later exchange with the Forward.
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