Posted on 09/28/2007 8:59:49 AM PDT by Born Conservative
HARRISBURG, Pa. (Map, News) - Gov. Ed Rendell is returning campaign contributions from two donors associated with former fugitive Norman Hsu, a man facing fraud charges.
Rendell's decision to give back $7,000 comes three weeks after the Democratic governor said he would donate to charity nearly $38,000 that came directly from Hsu.
The most recent giveback resulted from "sufficient questions" about the donors that were raised in press accounts, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.
The governor is returning $2,000 contributed in May 2005 by a resident of Daly City, Calif., and $5,000 donated in April 2006 by a resident of Long Island, N.Y.
Hsu has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic politicians, and authorities allege he used straw donors to get around federal campaign donation limits.
Federal prosecutors have also accused Hsu of running a Ponzi investment scheme that defrauded people around the country out of about $60 million.
Hsu spent 15 years as a fugitive after skipping formal sentencing on fraud charges in a 1991 case. California authorities alleged he stole $1 million from family and others who thought they were investing in a clothing deal.
Hsu turned himself in last month, then skipped the next court hearing, fled on an Amtrak train and was arrested Sept. 6 at a Colorado hospital after attempting suicide on the train.
Rendell and other recipients of donations Hsu gave or helped facilitate have been trying to distance themselves from him over the past month.
The story that just keeps on giving, pretty neat. You just KNOW the Republicans are busily tabulating all the contributions having to be returned and by who just so they can run them over and over and over again in campaign commercials next year.
Don’t give this money to charity. Give it to the opposing party. This will stop this kind of crap. The last thing they want is to have the opposing party to get their money.
Fast Eddie!
A week or so ago, there was a post about the monkey trap —— how a monkey will put his hand in a box to grab a handful of nuts, but can’t pull his hand out when startled, because his fist locks up and detains him...
Ed Rendell is one of the big-fisted variety, and if Winkle Paw’s cash was released by Ed Rendell, it had to be on fire.
Winkle Paw, at last report, has been missing for a few weeks. Hmm.
Clarice Feldman at the American Thinker has an article up.
"We also don't know for sure that Winkle has deliberately vanished. It could simply be that the authorities aren't looking for him (he's not listed as wanted in California). But if they're not hunting for him, maybe they ought to be. The Orange County investors haven't been able to reach him since the morning Hsu lit out for Denver. That was three weeks ago. If - let's say - Paw was on that train too, keeping his cool a bit better than his pill-popping partner, and if he had access to even a small fraction of the millions in liquid assets at Hsu's disposal, Winkle just may have winked out of this story for good." You can just hear the coming mantra: "There was no evidence found of wrongdoing ...."
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