Posted on 08/11/2006 1:18:59 PM PDT by abb
I wonder if she does porn? That is not a snide question, rather a serious one based on those pictures and those of her friends.
You were the one who told me Shannon was married to Kim's brother, right? I forget soooo much these days.
I think I had posted something from "Wickedly Wonderful" (Aunt Debbie) which indicated she was related to the Roberts family.
BTW, I guess Jazz has been out of town for a while-he misses Shannon (Forbidden Fruit) big time.
http://www.newsobserver.com/701/story/418671.html
March 16, 2006
Durham officials should be wary of doing business with a financial company embroiled in a California bribery scandal, a prominent Duke University law professor says.
(snip)
Howard Clement III (and frequently seen in the company of Mike Nifong, btw) the council member who has been pushing hard for Rice, says the company should be considered innocent of the accusations until proven guilty.
(But he doesn't feel that way about the lacrosse players...)
"People sue each other every day," said Clement, a retired lawyer. "Being sued doesn't make them guilty of anything."
Durham deal proceeds
Author: Michael Biesecker; Staff Writer, News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC), June 6, 2006
DURHAM -- In a 5-2 vote Monday, the Durham City Council awarded a no-bid contract to restructure $107 million in municipal debt with a New York financial firm mired in a California lawsuit over bribes paid to public officials.
Rice Financial Products Co. estimates the transaction, which "swaps" the interest rates paid by the city with those paid by private borrowers, could save Durham taxpayers up to $4 million in payments over the next 15 years. The transaction would also award **about $700,000 in fees to Rice, as well as another $100,000 to a city consultant and $40,000 in attorneys' fees.**
However, the transaction comes with risk. Kenneth Pennoyer, the city finance director, said that if there was a "worst case scenario" where if interest rates go too high or too low and federal tax laws change, Durham could incur "negative savings," or losses, of up to $14 million. Pennoyer classified the odds of that scenario as "remote."
In a final plea for their colleagues to change their minds, holdout council members Eugene Brown and Diane Catotti said the potential savings are not worth the risk -- especially considering the unresolved suit against Rice filed by a Los Angeles-area utility over a pair of similar rate swaps enacted in 2001 and 2003.
The West Basin Municipal Water District filed a lawsuit against Rice, Chief Executive Officer Don Rice and others involved in the deals after two commissioners on the public utility's board pleaded guilty in federal criminal court to accepting bribes to vote in Rice's favor, after an FBI investigation. The water district is seeking release from its transactions with Rice, which total $231 million, as well as millions in damages.
Rice is a small company with fewer than 30 employees, and some worry a big judgment could bankrupt it -- leaving the city to collect its money from The Bank of New York, which is insuring the transaction. The case goes to trial in October.
"In my judgement, this city needs to have some standards," Brown said. "This is not our finest hour."
In its legal filings, Rice has said it had no knowledge of the bribes paid by a political consultant working on the company's behalf. No Rice employee has been charged with a crime.
Council member Thomas Stith, who voted to support Rice, accused Brown of overstating the risk to taxpayers.
"I'm hearing a little bit of fact and a whole lot of alarmism," Stith said. "Let's look at all our vendors and see who has been sued. I think we will be surprised."
Stith pointed to the $868,818 savings reaped by Durham County, which enacted a $126 million rate swap in 2004. Brown countered that Rice had originally estimated that the county's swap would yield $1.2 million a year. So far, in more than two years, the county has earned $868,818 -- less than half of Rice's projections.
"On this issue, and with this firm, I am very proud to be an alarmist," Brown said.
** Damn good business to be in.
Also, on Kim's page, if those are her kids... she likes "white boys"... so she was probably really mad that she didn't get any attention from the LAX boys...
Now find some my space on Crystal!! I would love to see her siblings pages...LOL
Norris banned from lobbying for 2 years
By Dan Kane, Staff Writer, Published: Aug 11, 2006 01:40 PM
House Speaker Jim Black's former unpaid political director, Meredith Norris, pleaded no contest in a Wake County courtroom today to a misdemeanor charge that she violated the state's lobbying law by failing to disclose her work for a major lottery vendor.
A no contest plea means Norris has not admitted guilt but will not fight the charge against her and will accept the court's punishment.
Norris was sentenced to one year of probation, a $500 fine and 75 hours community service. She was also banned from lobbying for two years.
Norris, 32, of Raleigh, became a lobbyist nearly four years ago after leaving Black's legislative office, where she had worked as a top aide. But she continued to assist Black's campaign by raising money, coordinating events and publishing a newsletter of his endeavors.
Last year, lottery company Scientific Games hired Norris shortly before lawmakers took up legislation to create a state lottery. Her work for Scientific Games was not disclosed until after the lottery had become law.
In September, Norris and a company vice president, Alan Middleton, told The News & Observer that Norris had been hired only to monitor legislation and not try to influence lawmakers. But correspondence released by Black's office in October showed that she had set up a dinner between Middleton and Black and had sought to invite lawmakers to a yacht cruise with Middleton in Seattle, where a legislative conference was being held.
That prompted a state investigation that forced the company to reveal that it had reimbursed Norris roughly $3,800 for wining and dining lawmakers. The company also disclosed that one of Black's nominees to the new state lottery commission, public relations executive Kevin Geddings, had also been working for Scientific Games to help get the lottery passed.
Geddings also faces a misdemeanor lobbying charge. Middleton, who no longer works for Scientific Games, is charged with misdemeanor lobbying violations for failing to register at the time he began lobbying lawmakers, and for failing to register Norris as a lobbyist.
Federal authorities have charged Geddings with mail and wire fraud for failing to disclose his work for Scientific Games before joining the lottery commission. Both have said they are innocent of the charges against them.
** All roads lead to Rome **
Kim doesn't look like a felonious stripper, does she? LOL
I couldn't find a thing about a company called that!!!! hmmmmm hehehe
Once a hustler.....
And after Nifon't sorry ass is out, set your sights on the Durham police chief and his drunken racist "investigators."
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That's what I'm talking about!
Oh, the smell. (editorial) News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC) November 3, 2005.
North Carolina's lottery - even the mention of it these days brings the inevitable question: What now? The process of passing the lottery, the early embarrassments in its setup, the influence brought to bear by one company that wants to run it -- everything about it just stinks. The ink is barely dry on the lottery law, and already the odor is akin to a herd of skunks hit by a truck carrying a load of blue cheese. Good grief.
It's enough to make it perfectly clear what Governor Easley's course now should be. He should call a special session of the General Assembly, immediately, to address issues surrounding the lottery -- perhaps even to rescind the legislation authorizing it and to consider the matter afresh. This would be in light of a series of disclosures about how Scientific Games, a company that operates lotteries, pushed for passage of the lottery by currying favor with legislative leaders. It also would be worthwhile to look at any efforts by other lottery companies to influence lawmakers. Certainly they invested in lobbying as well.
Paid to communicate
The latest, and only the latest, troubling disclosure involves Kevin Geddings, a Charlotte public relations executive appointed to the commission overseeing the lottery by House Speaker Jim Black. Geddings had past business ties to Alan Middleton, a vice president of Scientific Games, a company that wants to bid for a multimillion-dollar contract to run the new state lottery. Now, as reported yesterday by The News & Observer's J. Andrew Curliss and Dan Kane, it turns out that Geddings was paid over $24,000 by Scientific Games this year for communications consulting.
This included $9,500 paid to him the day after Black appointed him to the commission. (Easley, Black and Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight appointed commissioners.)
Geddings -- who had vowed he would never quit the commission -- did just that on Tuesday, hours before the company disclosed his payments in a filing with North Carolina's Secretary of State's office. The commission's chairman, former Glaxo head Dr. Charles Sanders, says he was surprised by the revelations and felt that Geddings had misled him.
Middleton worked feverishly to push the lottery when it was under consideration. He even retained Meredith Norris, an unpaid key political aide to Black and professional lobbyist, to keep the company posted on the lottery's progress. Middleton said, however, that Norris was not lobbying for his company. The Secretary of State is looking into whether by not registering as a lobbyist for the company, Norris violated state regulations.
Story in records
Alarming, even outrageous, facts keep coming to light about the lottery's route to passage and the aftermath. For instance, this newspaper disclosed that Middleton engineered language in the lottery law that was intended to benefit his company. And as The N&O reported yesterday, records show that Norris, not registered as a lobbyist for Scientific Games and then still Black's political adviser, was reimbursed more than $3,800 by the company for numerous fancy dinners involving legislative leaders between April and August at upscale restaurants. Black was the chief recipient listed in the company's report: He got 10 meals.
Scientific Games, clearly trying to stay in the hunt for the lottery business and vowing to be transparent in its dealings, said in its reports that it couldn't find "clear guidelines" in state law that would show Norris was actually a lobbyist. This speaks to the infamous "goodwill" loophole in lobbying regulation, which lawmakers now have closed -- effective in 2007. (Goodwill expenditures, said to be entertainment expenses not for the purpose of specific lobbying, would have to be reported.)
In any case, legislators who bellied up to the Scientific Games table ought to be ashamed of themselves. Did they honestly believe the company was wining and dining them because of their sparkling personalities?
And of course, it worked.** The legislature passed the lottery, barely, giving Easley a long-sought victory** that now looks to have tarnished legislative leaders' reputations and embarrassed the governor as well.
The News & Observer's editorial position has been dead set against the lottery for many years. But what's going on now isn't so much about the virtues of having a lottery or not having one. It's about the aura of sleaze that quickly has come to surround it.
A special session, lasting a week or so, should reconsider the lottery in light of what's now known about the circumstances of its passage. That also should be enough time to move up the date, to right now, when "goodwill" lobbying disclosures are required. Goodness knows, no pun intended, action on both counts is needed.
If you've spent some time around 18-21 year old athletes (especially Males), I could see then viewing 30 yr old Kim Roberts as Old. Since some had supposedly been drinking all day, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that loose lips may have hurt Kim's pride.
19 year olds think 30 is ancient.
I can't help but think these strippers were not what they envisioned.
-
It's a Dirty, Dirty place.
At this point, I think people in Durham view normal business practices and normal governmental procedures as the exception.
Instead of getting upset when corruption is exposed in that city - they yawn. Now, if they found out somebody did what they were supposed to and held up their end of the bargain - they'd be shocked.
Corruption isn't even News in Durham.
They expected "Pretty Woman", they got .... well, let's just say they didn't get what they expected. I'd a been po'd too... and I'm not even a 19 yo guy!
"Pinging" you to the Duke thread.
I am sure they thought they were getting strippers like the pics of the ones that advertise on line and ended up the skanks that had been rode hard and put up wet....LOL
Note: I do not peruse websites looking for strippers ( I am female) but like PBR, I have been surfing lately looking for Crystal and Kimmie....LOL
Off to good start!
Is this campaign getting any local press?
What in blazes in a "Ruritan Club"?
Jeez, what a bunch of scumbags.
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