D.E.L.T.A. Rescue (short for “Dedication & Everlasting Love to Animals”) entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court on May 9, 2025. This means that a judge is supervising the charity’s finances while it tries to stabilize, pay its debts, and decide how to move forward. The case is in Los Angeles before Judge Neil W. Bason, with Todd A. Frealy as the court-appointed Chapter 11 trustee overseeing D.E.L.T.A. Rescue’s bankruptcy (C.D. Cal. case no. 2:25-bk-13881-NB).
Status of the Duarte Lawsuit
As previously reported by CharityWatch, a wrongful-termination case was brought against D.E.L.T.A. Rescue and its founder and president, Leo Grillo, by former employee Adriana Duarte Valentines. In November 2024 a jury awarded $6.7 million to Duarte, who alleged wrongful termination and discrimination related to her pregnancy.
Grillo told CharityWatch in a March 2025 email that he planned to appeal the case. According to court records, the bankruptcy judge specifically allowed the state-court appeal to go forward, granting relief from the normal automatic stay that would otherwise pause most legal actions once a bankruptcy is filed. In other words, the appeal is active, and the parties can continue briefing and arguing it while the bankruptcy proceeds.
According to the November 2024 Judgment, the jury found that Duarte was paid lower than the legal overtime compensation rate for the hours she worked; that her “sex, gender, pregnancy, and/or national origin” was a “substantial motivating reason” for the charity’s decision to terminate her; and that D.E.L.T.A. Rescue engaged in “retaliatory conduct” that was “a substantial factor in causing harm” to Duarte. Specifically, the jury found that Duarte proved “by clear and convincing evidence that Leo Grillo engaged in conduct with malice, oppression, or fraud in committing one or more violations” for which it awarded non-economic damages of nearly $5.5 million. Total damages awarded by the jury amounted to just under $6.7 million, according to the Judgment.
CharityWatch’s Findings
Earlier this year CharityWatch reported on D.E.L.T.A. Rescue’s network of related charities. These include D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, Living Earth Productions, and Horse Rescue of America, which all share the same officers or directors, as well as significant financial transactions among them. During our analysis of these organizations’ 2022 and 2023 IRS Form 990 tax filings, we found that D.E.L.T.A. Rescue reported cash grants to these two related organizations in 2022 and 2023 amounting to an aggregate of more than $2.5 million. The problem? The recipient organizations’ tax filings did not report that the organizations received them.
Since publishing our article, CharityWatch identified an additional legal entity that shares the same three officers or directors as D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, Living Earth Productions, and Horse Rescue of America. Nevada-based Animals are People Too received tax-exempt charity status in 2010, according to IRS records. The charity reported total cash, savings, and investments of $429,699 as of 12/31/2023.
CharityWatch reached out to bankruptcy Trustee, Todd A. Frealy, via email on 9/29/25 asking if D.E.L.T.A. Rescue’s related organizations are also subject to his oversight. Given that D.E.L.T.A. Rescue and its 3 related organizations share millions of dollars’ worth of charitable donations among them, CharityWatch believes strongly that it is in the public interest to know if funds already transferred from D.E.L.T.A. Rescue to its related organizations are also subject to the bankruptcy Trustee’s oversight. As of October 9th, 2025 we have not received a response.
