Sounds like a good thing... but are they leftists, like the Tides Foundation? It would pay conservative seniors to know before they accept funding, and the oversight that goes with it.
Those of us here in the States have heard scores of stories in the past few months about greedy mortgage brokers and lenders who contributed to the country’s economic meltdown by inflating the value of properties and convincing lenders to lend them money based on the fraudulent valuations. This is precisely what Maize did in his heyday, and Lehman Bros., one of the victims of the meltdown, was his willing (though perhaps unwitting) partner in this according to an FBI press release that announced his plea bargain. In it, he confessed to five felony counts in order to avoid a possible 98-year prison sentence:
…In United States District Court in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against Richard A. Maize, 53, of Beverly Hills. Maize, a co-founder of Americorp Funding, a mortgage banking company with offices in West Los Angeles and Pasadena, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and loan fraud, three counts of bank fraud and one count of making a false statement on a federal tax return.
In a plea agreement also filed today, Maize agreed to plead guilty to the five felony counts…
Maize booked more than $245-million in mortgages for his employer in 2002 alone. The FBI blames him for at least $18-million in fraud and he agreed to pay $2.75-million in restitution.
It’s certainly no accident that Maize established his family foundation just after his legal troubles arose. This is a common practice with the world’s n’er-do-wells. They seek to compensate for the evils they do by spreading a few philanthropic dollars to take the sting out of their infamy. Maize apparently did this on the very cheap. The first year his charity operated it had a mere $22,500 in assets. Hardly a serious gesture from a confessed felon seeking to whiten his reputation.