Gawker Shopping Out $200,000 Rob Ford Crack Video Fund To Canadian Charities

Gawker plans to donate the $200,000 it raised on a crowd-funding website to buy a video allegedly showing Toronto's mayor smoking crack cocaine.

Editor John Cook said he was searching for a charity to which Gawker could offer the money, collected on Indiegogo via the "Rob Ford Crackstarter Fund," now that the 30-day window to collect money has closed.

"I'm presently reaching out to potential recipients to find a good home for the money," Cook told GigaOM in an email. "Hope to have something to announce soon."

Cook launched the crowd-funding campaign after men in Toronto showed him and two Toronto Star reporters a video of conservative Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe. The men said the video would cost $200,000, but by the time Gawker raised the money, the video's owners had disappeared.

Ford has vehemently denied the existence of the video, saying he does not smoke crack.

But in the weeks after Gawker's revelation -- the Star reported on the video after the New York-based tabloid site broke the news -- a man believed to be linked to the video was murdered. Anthony Smith was fatally shot in March by Nasir Hashimi, 23, who pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter. Smith had appeared beside Ford and two other men in a now-infamous photo taken at a west-side bungalow in Toronto, the Star reported.