A Maui-based veterans charity called "highly questionable" by a watchdog group and now under review by the state attorney general’s office has dropped its website, but the organization’s president vows to resume operations.

Stay Strong Nation President L.A. Keith Crosby said he’s "just waiting on the attorney general to cut us loose. Somebody came up with a bogus investigation, so we followed every guideline. We’re just waiting on his (the attorney general’s) response."

The tax-exempt group embarked on a nationwide money-raising campaign last year, appearing in Times Square in September and on a Fox News national broadcast in January.

Stay Strong stated on its website at www.staystrongnation.org — where it solicited donations — that its goal was to build a $20 million post-traumatic stress disorder/traumatic brain injury treatment facility on Maui for service members returning from active duty.

Additionally, the charity touted a controversial and unproved dietary supplement, ProArgi-9 Plus, as a treatment for PTSD and TBI.

Web hosting company GoDaddy.com recently posted a notice at www.staystrongnation.org saying the domain name had expired on July 8 and was pending renewal or deletion.

Crosby said by phone last week from Maui that the attorney general’s office is "going over everything," adding, "We’ve given him everything he’s asked for, so as soon as he gives us the go-ahead, we’re up and going again."

Hugh Jones, supervising deputy attorney general in the Tax Division, said in an email that "we are continuing our inquiry" into Stay Strong Nation.

Jones added that his office has asked the charity for additional records and information, but didn’t specify what information.

Stay Strong Nation was told by the attorney general’s office in March to cease all fundraising activity until it registered with the state as a charity, Jones previously said. The organization subsequently registered.

The group’s state filing said it plans to build the treatment center, tour every state with a 35-by-17-foot inflatable "awareness" sign, distribute a military "anthem" and prayer to service members and fund a study to get service members off "heavy medication."

Crosby previously told the Star-Advertiser that Stay Strong Nation had raised a "minuscule" amount of money, but would not specify how much. An Army-produced news story in 2008 noted that the group was trying to raise money.

Crosby said he is a Vietnam combat veteran who had PTSD, and said he was a maintenance worker at Hale Mahina Beach Resort, a musician, music producer and a former retail shop manager.

The charity’s vice president, Gresford "Lewis" Lewishall, said he taught English in Japan in between appearances on behalf of Stay Strong. He moved to the United States from Jamaica in 1978, was a music promoter and also drove a tour bus on Maui, according to the group’s now-defunct website.

The two also collaborated in Boo You Back Productions to produce CDs; Gateway to Paradise, a music-related business; and two other nonprofits: the Nene Preservation & Awareness Society of Hawaii and National Domestic Violence Awareness and Solutions Inc.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group in Chicago, previously said Crosby and Lewishall did not appear to have professional expertise in PTSD or in creating a $20 million treatment center for it, and called the organization "highly questionable."

Crosby said at the time that Stay Strong Nation was "aboveboard on everything."