RISP serves warrant at Sport Insitute

KINGSTON, R.I. (WPRI) - The Rhode Island State Police executed a search warrant at the Institute for International Sport in Kingston to track a trail involving $575,000 in taxpayers' money .

The organization and its Executive Director Dan Doyle are under fire for how it spent the General Assembly 'legislative grant' that was supposed to pay for construction of the institute's new headquarters. 5 years after the grant from the state, the building is an empty, weed covered shell and so far $163,000 is accounted for.

"Everything about the case, there's concerns," Rhode Island State Police Colonel Steven O'Donnell said. "There's a dozen detectives from the State Police that are all over this. We have a pretty good idea of what transpired down there. We're just going to pursue it."

Doyle was unavailable for comment today. A spokeswoman for the institute said the organization is cooperating with the investigation.

The day before state police were on-hand as well and the front doors were locked at the non-profit institute.

• Probe into use of URI grant funding

O'Donnell said this is a joint investigation between State Police and the Attorney General but he added that investigators are also in contact with the F.B.I.

"We're looking for records to corroborate what our investigation has lead to and that's all I can say right now," Colonel O'Donnell said.