Sweet Deal From The Old Sod For Dodd

Looks like those sweetheart mortgages Chris Dodd snagged from Countrywide as a “Friend of Angelo,” its CEO, aren’t the only sugar-coated real estate deals from which the senior Connecticut senator has benefitted. The intrepid Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, who has been dogging Dodd’s Countrywide dealings, has now turned up an Irish real estate deal sweeter than Bailey’ Cream–but with the whiff of a week-old flounder.

I’d encourage folks to read Rennie’s entire story in the Courant. Here’s the Cliff Notes version:

* Dodd is great friends with New York high-roller Edward R. Downe, Jr.
* Downe gets convicted of tax and securities law violations.
* Dodd gets Bill Clinton to pardon Downe on his last day in office.
* Downe introduces Dodd to William Kessinger.
* Kessinger and Dodd buy, as partners, a fancy country “cottage” [see photo] on a ritzy Irish island.
* A couple years later, Kessinger sells Dodd his interest for what would appear to be much less than its market value.
* Dodd plays fast-and-loose with the way he reports the value of the property on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

Another waitress sandwich???

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Page Six
New York Post
January 25, 2001

EX’S PARDON IRKS FORD HEIRESS

AT least one person isn’t happy that Ed Downe obtained a full
pardon from Bill Clinton - his ex-wife Charlotte Ford.

The auto heiress divorced Downe five years ago, shortly after he
copped a plea to insider trading. Most people assumed she was
dumping the mogul over that disgrace.

But Charlotte says the only reason she asked for a divorce was
his philandering - right under her nose in the Sutton Place
apartment below theirs he used for his office.

“A half-hour after I went to bed, the girl, who is now his wife,
would come over in a wig and sunglasses. She’d leave at 5 a.m.,”
Charlotte told one friend. “He’d paid off all the doormen and
elevator men to keep their mouths shut.”

Downe married Mary Baker, the ex-wife of prominent plastic
surgeon Dr. Dan Baker, about three years ago. Charlotte had
introduced the divorcee to her husband. So it’s painful for her
now to see Downe rehabilitating his image. “It’s like a knife
when my name is associated with his,” she told her pal.

Downe was championed in his bid for a pardon by his friend Sen.
Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who often went clubbing with Downe at
Gotham’s most glittering nightspots.

“Ed would tell Charlotte they were going out to dinner, and then
wouldn’t come back until 2 a.m.,” a friend of hers said.

(snip)

(no link)

A Man of Means And Connections / Questions about another NYer’s pardon
Newsday (Melville, NY) - Sunday, March 4, 2001
Author: Craig Gordon. WASHINGTON BUREAU
Washington-In Southampton, Edward R . Downe Jr . and his wife lived in his-and-hers houses. In Manhattan, it was his-and-hers apartments in tony Sutton Place.

He was a Hamptons fixture a decade ago, a balding backslapper with a modern art collection at home and an heiress to the Ford automobile fortune on his arm. Charlotte Ford threw the glittering galas, but Downe presided over more earthy gatherings on Ox Pasture Road, burgers and cold salads by the pool on Saturday afternoons, then nickel-a-point gin rummy inside for men who could afford much more.

In 1992, federal investigators cast those poolside gatherings in a more sinister light. Downe and his friends had used that idyllic setting and others-even a yacht in the Caribbean once-to swap stock tips from their posts as corporate insiders to enrich themselves and others, investigators charged.

In all, the so-called “Society Seven” were accused of running one of the biggest insider-trading rings on record at the time, netting a total of $13 million in illegal profits. Downe was one of its leaders, the government charged, saying he passed along inside information gleaned from his corporate board seats at Bear, Stearns investment house and another company, Kidde Inc.

Downe faced 10 years in prison for tax and securities fraud but received 3 years of probation and 3,000 hours of community service after pleading guilty and cooperating with authorities. Downe and his case, a high-society morality play of the rich trying to get richer, soon left the headlines.

Eight years later, Downe ‘s name has resurfaced, this time as one of about 140 people pardoned by former President Bill Clinton on his last day in office. In its broad outlines, the handling of Downe ‘s pardon resembles the most controversial of all of Clinton’s actions-pardoning fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Downe ‘s case, like Rich’s, involved a man of means with political connections whose pardon did not go through customary Justice Department channels. Unlike Downe , Rich fled the country to escape justice.

Downe ‘s lawyer, Thomas Puccio, said his client filed a pardon application at the end of last year with the Justice Department, though the Justice Department says it has no application on file. One prominent Democrat took an interest in getting a pardon for Downe -Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, who wrote to Clinton on Downe ‘s behalf. The White House counsel’s office later contacted Puccio with questions about Downe ‘s case.

Dodd, through a spokesman, said he never spoke to Clinton directly about the case. So, like many of the pardons , what swayed Clinton’s decision remains unknown.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan who handled the case say they received no notice of Downe ‘s pardon , nor was the Securities and Exchange Commission notified, even though the final settlement of Downe ‘s financial judgment still is pending.

“We would have appreciated having an opportunity to review the application,” said the SEC’s enforcement chief, Richard Walker.

Downe is expected to end up paying just $1.8 million to settle his $11 million judgment with the SEC, with most of the money coming from the sale of Downe ‘s assets, one government attorney said. The SEC judgment isn’t covered by the pardon .

At least one former securities-fraud prosecutor questions the propriety of Downe ‘s pardon , given what he called the seriousness of the crime and Downe ‘s history as a longtime contributor to Democratic candidates.

“One has to be skeptical considering the connection with wealth and political contributions, and what turned out to be pardons for people who it’s not apparent on the face of it have any mitigating circumstances that would have warranted pardons ,” said Howard Heiss, former chief of the securities and commodities fraud task force for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan from 1992 to 1995.

Downe , now 71 and living in Manhattan, was an active contributor to Democratic candidates before his indictment, usually in $1,000 or $2,000 increments. In 1999, he contributed $1,000 each to Vice President Al Gore and to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign. Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, Jim Kennedy, said she had nothing to do with Downe ‘s pardon .

The names of Downe and his current wife, Mary Conley Downe , also appeared on the guest list for a June 20, state dinner given in honor of the king of Morocco. Neither Kennedy, nor former President Clinton’s spokeswoman, Julia Payne, could say why they were invited.

Payne also said she could offer no details as to why the former president pardoned Downe .

Downe did have Dodd in his corner. Dodd wrote a “Dear Mr. President” letter two days after Christmas seeking clemency for his friend of more than 20 years, a man with whom he speaks nearly every day.

“Ed made a mistake a number of years ago, for which he has accepted full responsibility...Over the years, Ed has expressed to me, his family and friends his deep remorse for his actions,” wrote Dodd, who attended Downe ‘s 1993 sentencing.

Dodd received a $2,000 contribution from Downe in 1995, but Dodd spokesman Marvin Fast said the letter was not related to the contribution.

(snip)

(no link)

Dodd ‘s valuation of Irish cottage raises eyebrows
Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT) - Saturday, June 23, 2007
Author: Don Michak ; Journal Inquirer

In the newest round of annual financial interest statements filed last month by members of Congress, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd again disclosed his ownership of a cottage in the west of Ireland.

Dodd has been making summer retreats to the two-bedroom cottage on the island of Innishnee in County Galway’s Connemara district for more than a decade, so much so that locals are said to refer to him fondly as “the senator from Inishnee .”

A regional newspaper, The Galway Independent, also reports that the Democratic senator from Connecticut is well known there as an adjunct professor in the political science and sociology department of the National University of Ireland, about 50 miles from Innishnee in Galway City.

But it is Dodd ‘s current status as a candidate for 2008 Democratic presidential nomination that has drawn more attention to his holdings, and particularly to the value he assigned his principal asset — the Inishnee cottage — in his latest disclosure statement.

Take, for example, DoChara’s Ireland Blog, an Internet site that bills itself as an “Unofficial Guide to Ireland.”

In a comment posted Monday, the site’s Irish editor and a professional Web designer, Katherine Nolan, suggested that Dodd “certainly has an eye for property,” noting that while the senator has valued the cottage at between $100,000 and $250,000 on congressional disclosure forms, it is more likely worth far more.

“Now maybe Mr. Dodd has not had time to keep up with the property market in Ireland, or is unaware of Ireland’s climbing cost of living, but let me tell you that if he is planning to sell at anything even remotely close to that range he will be beating away potential buyers with a stick,” she wrote.

“You couldn’t buy a hovel in Galway for that money, and apparently the cottage in question is a very nicely restored affair on the idyllic island of Inishnee , close to the coast in the fashionable Roundstone area of Connemara.”

“Think 600,000 euros to 800,000 euros and you’re getting warm!” she added. “That’s getting on for a cool $1 million, Maybe he thought nobody would believe him; he’s probably right.”

To be fair, Dodd specifically noted on his latest congressional filing that the $100,000-$250,000 value was based on an “appraisal at the time of purchase.”

He had not included that phrase on a similar filing made earlier this year as a presidential candidate, nor had he made the same qualification on several previous congressional filings.

The senator also reported in May that last year he collected between $5,000 and $15,000 by renting out the cottage, on which he took out a 20 year, variable-rate mortgage in 2002.

(snip)

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