By the GOv appointment,Roland Burris leading to Reynolds...is Blank-O making a statement to Fitz? Follow the yellow brink-load...
More on Reynolds.
Facts About Me and Barack
“”Jim And Barack Are Very Close Friends And Have Been For A Long Time,’ Said Leslie Bond, A Chicago Money Manager And Obama Fundraiser.” (Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, “Fundraisers Linked To Corruption Cases,” USA Today, 10/16/08)
FROM:
http://www.barackbook.com/Profiles/JamesReynoldsJr.htm
“In 2003, James Reynolds, A Chicago Investment Banker Who Is A Member Of Obama’s National Finance Committee, Was Recorded On FBI Wiretaps Arranging What Prosecutors Said Was A “Sham’ Consulting Contract With A Woman They Called The “Paramour’ Of A Mayoral Adviser In Philadelphia. His Firm Later Won $300,000 Worth Of City Contracts.” (Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, “Fundraisers Linked To Corruption Cases,” USA Today, 10/16/08)
“Loop Was Awarded Two No-Bid Contracts Worth Nearly $300,000, According To A Later Indictment Of Philadelphia City Treasurer Corey Kemp. Reynolds Agreed To Pay $30,000 To A Shell Company Controlled By White’s Paramour, Janice Knight, According To Court Records. “I’ll Keep You Out Of It,’ Reynolds Told White In An April 2003 Conversation Recorded By The FBI.” (Ken Dilanian and Matt Kelley, “Fundraisers Linked To Corruption Cases,” USA Today, 10/16/08)
Much more at link.
More n Burris
LABORERS (LIUNA)
Mob-Infested Chicago Local Suggests Ex-AG as Temporary Supervisor
Reeling from the expulsion of three organized crime members from its hierarchy, the new president of a Chicago Laborers union has asked that a frmr. state attny. general be appointed to oversee the union. But with Roland Burris having been a character witness for a Teamster expelled from office for associating with organized crime, it remains an open question whether Burris will be approved...
...This is not Burris’s first involvement with allegedly corrupt unions. While serving as attny. gen. in 1994, Burris was a character witness for Robert T. Simpson Jr., frmr. pres. of Intl. Bhd. of Teamsters (IBT) Local 743. In spite of that testimony, the fed. Independent Rev. Bd. (IRB) ruled that Simpson had allowed Donald Peters to continue his influence of the Chicago local after Peters had agreed to have nothing to do with the union. Peters was named as a defendant in the 1988 fed. racketeering lawsuit against the IBT.
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Firm failed to report $25,000 political donation // Feds not informed of Loop Capital money that went to Dems
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Author: Frank Main
EXCERPTS
A politically connected Chicago investment banking firm failed to tell federal regulators about a $25,000 contribution to the Democratic Party of Illinois in 2002 — a violation of government rules, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Loop Capital Markets LLC is one of the financial companies under scrutiny in a political corruption case in Philadelphia.
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Possibility of penalties
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and the SEC would not comment on whether Loop should face any penalties.
Asked about past SEC enforcement actions against companies for failing to disclose political contributions, a spokesman pointed to a $25,000 fine that the agency issued against Oklahoma securities dealer Allen W. Counts in 2003.
Loop and chief executive officer James Reynolds have handed out more than $130,000 in political contributions in Illinois since 1998, state records show. Over that period, the minority-owned firm has landed work in connection with billions of dollars of bond deals for the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago and other government agencies in Illinois.
Under the Blagojevich administration, Loop has earned $1.49 million in fees from bond work, over half of which was made in a $10 billion state pension deal. Loop recently became an adviser on the Chicago Skyway bond deal.
Under the limit
Loop’s donations to Gov. Blagojevich, former Gov. George Ryan and Mayor Daley did not have to be reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board because they were under a $250-per-election cycle limit, Simon said.
Reynolds contributed $26,000 to a fund for Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, but the company did not report that to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, either. The company does not think Jones is an “issuer official” who can directly affect whether Loop wins government business, Simon said.
Earlier this year, a federal indictment in Philadelphia referred to a “Company No. 4” sources have identified as Loop Capital Markets. Company No. 4 hired Philly attorney Ron White in 2003 to help the company win municipal bond deals in Pennsylvania, the document said.
Company No. 4’s chief executive officer agreed to funnel $5,000 a month to White through a shell company to disguise White’s influence, the indictment said. Loop was not accused of criminal activity. The case is set to go to trial next year.
Last year, Loop paid Burris & Lebed Consulting — the firm of powerbroker and former Illinois Attorney General Roland W. Burris — $5,000 a month to obtain municipal bond business here, records show.
http://www.afro-netizen.com/2004/11/firm_in_skyway_.html
Firm in Skyway deal linked to corruption case
By Frank Main & Fran Spielman
Staff Reporters
Chicago Sun-times
A politically connected minority-owned Chicago investment banking firm that recently won a piece of the lucrative Skyway toll road deal is at the center of a federal corruption case in Philadelphia.
Loop Capital Markets — a big donor to Illinois politicians — secretly funneled money to a Philadelphia attorney to gain business with the city of Philadelphia, according to a federal indictment there.
The indictment accuses the attorney, Ronald A. White, of bribing Philly’s then-treasurer, Corey Kemp, to steer city business to favored companies, including Loop Capital Markets. White died this month. Kemp and others are scheduled to stand trial next year.
Loop Capital Markets is not a defendant and is not formally named in the indictment. But the document lists “Company No. 4” as one of the firms that benefitted from White’s alleged wrongdoing, and the Chicago Sun-Times has identified Company No. 4 as Loop Capital Markets based on financial details in the indictment and a source close to the case.
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FBImakes Philly wiretaps public
Intelligencer, The (Doylestown, PA) - Thursday, February 17, 2005
Author: David B. Caruso The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - Federal prosecutors released transcripts Wednesday of more than 550 phone conversations secretly intercepted by the FBI during its investigation of public corruption in Philadelphia.
Almost all of the calls were made on phones owned by Ronald A. White , a fund-raiser for Mayor John F. Street who died in November while awaiting trial on charges that he made payoffs to the city’s treasurer in an attempt to influence government contracts.
The ex-treasurer, Corey Kemp, is scheduled to be tried next week on corruption charges, along with two executives at Commerce Bank and a millionaire Detroit businessman as well as White’s mistress.
All are accused of participating in a scheme in which city contracts were allegedly traded for political contributions, gifts, favors and payments.
Street, who has not been charged in the case, was recorded speaking to White at least three times, according to the transcripts.
In one call, White asks for Street’s help in arranging for a Chicago company, Loop Capital Markets, to receive a lucrative financial services contract. During the call, White tells Street that Loop has been “helpful.” He also reminds Street that he just arranged for $50,000 in donations to his re-election campaign, and another $17,000 for the Democratic City Committee.
“I need Loop in there,” White said.
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GREED, LIES AND AUDIOTAPES - ON TAPE, KNIGHT ADMITS FIBBING
Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Author: ERIN EINHORN
ON OCT. 16, 2003, Janice Knight called her boyfriend, Ronald A. White , and informed him that she had just lied to the FBI.
Three agents had shown up at her house unexpectedly at 7 a.m. that morning and interviewed her for about an hour, agent Michael O’Brien testified yesterday in the City Hall corruption trial.
As soon as they left, Knight called White on his cell phone.
“He asked me about . . . Renee Enterprises,” Knight told White in a conversation that was recorded by FBI wiretaps.
Renee, a company owned by Knight, was registered as a vending company, but agents knew from their investigation that it had also received $30,000 in monthly “consulting” payments from a Chicago financial services company called Loop Capital Markets.
Prosecutors say the payments were a back-door way for Loop to buy White’s access to Mayor Street, former city treasurer Corey Kemp and other top city officials.
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Prosecutors then delved into Knight’s businesses, demonstrating White’s heavy involvement in both of them. They played tapes of White setting up the Renee contract with Loop , bringing it to Knight to sign, then telling Knight how to do the job.
In one conversation, White called Knight to tell her she needed to call Loop CEO Jim Reynolds to tell him that he had been moved from one bond deal to another. Knight was angry. “Am I suppose to be apologetic in my voice?” she asked. “I mean you know, am I supposed to be angry like I was fighting tooth and nail for this? Like I don’t like going in blindly the way I am.”
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