Montana probing Greg Mortenson charity

By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY

Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock said Tuesday that he had begun an investigation into the charity run by Greg Mortenson, author of the best-selling inspirational memoir Three Cups of Tea.

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  By Khyber Mortenson

  Author Greg Mortenson is under fire after 60 Minutes claimed in a report on Sunday that he fabricated large portions of his popular book Three Cups of Tea.

By Khyber Mortenson

Author Greg Mortenson is under fire after 60 Minutes claimed in a report on Sunday that he fabricated large portions of his popular book Three Cups of Tea.

The accuracy of Mortenson's memoir and the finances of his Montana-based charity, which builds schools in impoverished areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, were questioned by 60 Minutes Sunday and in a digital expos� released Monday by another best-selling author, Jon Krakauer.

Krakauer, a fellow mountain climber and author of Into Thin Air, donated $75,000 to Mortenson's charity, the Central Asia Institute, before he began questioning how it spent its donations and how many of the schools actually were operating.

Now, Krakauer is at the center of a publishing scandal that goes beyond the accuracy of a memoir.

Krakauer's 75-page expos�, Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way, is available at byliner.com as a free download until Thursday and as a $2.99 Kindle single after that. Proceeds go to the American Himalayan Foundation's STOP Girl Trafficking program.

Krakauer writes that "Three Cups of Tea has much in common with A Million Little Pieces, the infamous autobiography by James Frey that was exposed as a sham. But Frey, unlike Mortenson, didn't use his phony memoir to solicit tens of millions of dollars in donations from unsuspecting readers, myself among them."

Mortenson, who has reported that he needs heart surgery, and his foundation didn't respond to e-mails and phone calls Tuesday.

Krakauer's editor, Mark Bryant, says Krakauer isn't doing interviews about Three Cups of Deceit because "he doesn't want to pile on. If challenged by either Greg Mortenson or his foundation, he'll respond.

"But he prefers to let his writing speak for itself," Bryant says.

Bryant did explain why Krakauer appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday, then a day later, and with no advance word, released his own expos�. Bryant says Krakauer tipped off 60 Minutes about his concerns about Mortenson last year and later decided: "There was more to the story than could be told in 12 to 14 minutes on TV. But he promised 60 Minutes they could go first."

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