Are you an
Posted on 12/04/2009 3:10:48 PM PST by FromLori
Elliott Broidy, the former Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee, plead guilty yesterday to offering $1 million bribes to officials with New York state's pension funds. In return, Broidy got a $250 million investement in the Wall Street firm he worked for:
Broidy, who also resigned as chairman of Markstone Capital Partners, the private equity firm, admitted that he had paid for luxury trips to hotels in Israel and Italy for pension staffers and their relatives -- including first-class flights and a helicopter tour. Broidy funneled the money through charities and submitted false receipts to the state comptroller's office to cover his tracks.
The California financier, who was the GOP finance chairman in 2008, also paid thousands of dollars toward rent and other expenses for former "Mod Squad" star Peggy Lipton, who was dating a high-ranking New York pension official at the time.
Broidy now faces up to four years in jail and has to return some $18 million. Since the scandal with New York's pension fund broke, it has so far led to five guilty pleas and $100 million in public funds have been returned. However, Pro-Publica -- which has been doggedly covering the story -- notes that nothing has been done to prevent future corruption:
The system that allowed corruption to flourish in New York, where $110 billion in retirement savings are controlled by a sole trustee with no board oversight, is still in place.
Now lets go after the housing folks.
Are you an
Good. The more corrupt politicians in jail, the better.
...scandalous...
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, they are ALL crooked. Toss them ALL out at the first opportunity either by ballot or impeachment. There is no time to waste.
Funny how you have to dig deep into an article to find out the affiliation of a RAT when they commit crimes, yet when it’s a republican it’s ALWAYS plastered on the headline!
Wrong is wrong, but what I find interesting is that this is virtually a minor blip in the world of government corruption, but I bet it will undoubtedly receive plenty of attention from all the major news brokers. The part that bothers me is that the ACORN scandal is 1,000 times the story that this is and it was all but ignored. I won’t even mention climatgate and a varitable cornicopea of other major, yet unreported events. Is this type of coverage fooling anyone? I hope not. I would like to think America cannot possibly be this gullible.
Media bias...at your service. :-p
Toss his crooked arse in the slammer!
WSJ
Elliott Broidy emerged on the main stage of New York’s pay-to-play scandal Thursday. His guilty plea to a felony charge of rewarding official misconduct could mean up to four years in prison, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, despite the fact that he is cooperating with the probe.
Broidy resigned as chairman of Markstone Capital Group, the little-known firm that got him into hot water, and agreed to forfeit $18 million to New York, the same amount that Markstone charged the New York State Common Pension Fund.
“Broidy paid nearly a million dollars in bribes to get a quarter billion dollar investment,” according to a statement from Cuomo. According to the attorney general, Broidy acknowledged that he “funneled $300,000 to “Chooch” (the generally unseen movie that has been previously cited in the scandal), entered a “sham consulting agreement,” and paid over $90,000 to the girlfriend of a high-ranking official in the New York comptroller’s office, among other things.
Broidy has a remarkably diverse resume on top of his work for Markstone. Some highlights:
He sits on the board of trustees for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization. In March, when he was named to the organization’s board, the Wiesenthal Center noted that “he brings with him a wealth of experience as a major philanthropist and a person deeply involved in international affairs.”
He is a past member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, as well as the Future of Terrorism Task Force and New Technology Task Force, a position he was tapped for in January 2006 by Michael Chertoff.
Broidy, the former finance committee chairman for the Republican National Committee, was appointed by President George W. Bush to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2006. Broidy is also on the board of advisors of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School Center for Investment Studies.
But among his long list of public service roles, one position in particular may cause raised eyebrows. From 2002 through May of 2009, when he resigned due to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, Broidy was a trustee of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension fund. While it is fairly common for people to move fluidly back and forth between the investor world and the fund management world, Broidy is the only person we can think of to have a foot in both at once. (Readers, please feel free to mention others we may have forgotten.)
He needs to be whipped and then hanged.
Is there a senator or representative who is NOT guilty of the same crime?
Yes. Neither party is clean. And they wonder why the public holds them in contempt.
They are all guilty. But the guiltiest ones are SEIU, ACORN, The Apollo Group, Soros etc. The politicians will come and go, but until we get rid of the source of the corruption it will continue. These entities have turned corruption into big business, until we out them, it go on. and on, and on.
Simply one of Bob J’s “well heeled” politicians, no doubt, with a far greater “understanding” of how “party politics” works, and why our effort is SO doomed to failure.
Uh huh.
:-D
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