Posted on 07/31/2007 9:34:11 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put a key banking oversight agency under the stewardship of an administrator who, according to a bipartisan legislative investigation, helped arrange the misuse of millions of dollars of public funds and steered government contracts to friends.
Michael A. Kelley, appointed commissioner of the Department of Financial Services by the governor in December, was a central figure in the scandal that ultimately drove former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush from office in 2000. Kelley, who was Quackenbush's top deputy, was found unanimously by a bipartisan legislative panel to have helped the former insurance commissioner divert public funds away from state coffers and into nonprofit foundations that were focused largely on promoting the commissioner's political career.
The money, a total of $12.5 million, came from legal settlements extracted from insurance companies that failed to carry out their responsibilities to consumers in the wake of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. But not a single dollar ever made it to those consumers.
The bipartisan Assembly Committee on Insurance, which unanimously concluded in 2000 that Kelley "played a prominent role" in the scandal, also accused him of awarding a $144,000 contract to a longtime personal friend who lacked experience for the job. "No one else was interviewed," the report said.
Although Kelley was never charged criminally, he was forced to resign soon after the departure of Quackenbush.
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Kelley defended his actions in a written statement Monday.
"Subsequent to the legislative report, the FBI, attorney general, district attorney and a grand jury conducted a through investigation and identified the individuals that had broken the law," he wrote. "I was not complicit in any criminal activities. Those who were responsible for criminal acts were found and punished by the judicial system."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Wasn’t that also the name of the bogus gynecologist?
I’m afraid this doesn’t surprise me.
Ah-nold couldn’t have done better if he were a paid rodent agent.
Not since the Brazilian bikini wax became fashionable.
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