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Giuliani is associated with criminals......

FBI Tracked Alleged Russian Mob Ties of Giuliani Campaign Supporter

By Knut Royce, The Center for Public Integrity

WASHINGTON, December 14, 1999 — The Center for Public Integrity is investigating how billions of dollars of allegedly corrupted money from the former Soviet Union have found a haven in the United States, despite strict anti-laundering laws. Last month, the Center reported how a small San Francisco bank became a conduit for questionable funds as it, like many other banks around the country, aggressively pursued the cash from the former Soviet Bloc.

Today the Center reports on how political campaigns, also aggressively chasing after cash, end up with equally questionable contributions as suspected Russian organized crime figures seek to move into the U.S. political mainstream In future articles, the Center will show how the failure to sift the good money from bad is being replayed all over America.

A prominent commodities trader who acknowledges a business history with a reputed Soviet Bloc crime figure and a notorious arms dealer has been one of (then) New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's top campaign supporters. Giuliani is expected to be the Republican candidate next year for a U.S. Senate seat from New York.

Commodities trader Semyon (Sam) Kislin and his family also lavished thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, to former Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and to a number of state and city politicians. Kislin sits on the New York City Economic Development Board.

Denies Laundering Funds. Kislin denied that his firm had ever laundered funds. "Never, never," he said. New York FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette, told that the Center was preparing an article about Kislin based in part on FBI documents, declined to comment. What the FBI and other law enforcement organizations knew or suspected was never shared with the public.

To his neighbors and friends, the 64-year-old Kislin, who immigrated from Odessa, Ukraine, in 1974, is an enormously successful businessman who generously shares his wealth with charitable causes. And to Giuliani, Kislin is one of his staunchest supporters. Kislin and his wife, Ludmila, gave Giuliani a total of $14,250 in direct contributions between 1994 and 1997. In addition, when Giuliani's campaign chest approached the maximum he could spend for re-election in 1997, $9.7 million, Kislin was one of several top backers of the mayor who supported the Liberal Party, which had endorsed the mayor and helped finance his campaign, according to The Village Voice. One of Kislin's companies gave $30,000 to the Liberals.

Kislin also kicked in $7,700 to Jules Polenetsky, who was running with Giuliani for the city's office of public advocate and could share political advertisement costs with the mayor. Giuliani's campaign manager had asked the mayor's major contributors to help finance Polenetsky's campaign.

Giuliani Fund-Raiser. In 1996, Kislin hosted a fund-raiser for Giuliani, a former hard-charging federal prosecutor, at the Lido Restaurant in Brooklyn. And last May 25, Kislin also was a co-chair for a Giuliani fund-raiser at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. The bash raised $2.1 million for his probable run for the Senate next year.

"I did a lot of fund raising for Giuliani," Kislin acknowledged. "He's a good man, doing a good job for the city of New York." Bruce Teitelbaum, the spokesman for Giuliani's Senate campaign exploratory committee, refused through an aide to comment on Semyon Kislin's support of Giuliani. Teitelbaum refused to return calls himself. The mayor's press secretary, Sunny Mindel, said "I don't know anything about the mayor's contributors," and referred the question to Teitelbaum. The campaign did return a $2,000 check last August that it had received at the Sheraton Hotel fund-raiser from Philip Castellano, son of the late racketeer Paul Castellano, even though the younger Castellano has never been accused of a crime. Arik Kislin, Semyon's nephew, contributed $1,000 to the mayor in 1995.

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Here is a partial list of prominent politicians who have received campaign donations from Kislin and other people mentioned in police reports. Records were checked from 1994 to the most recent available.

LONG READ/GO HERE FOR LIST:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:hEltFDTB_aYJ:www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx%3Faid%3D323