Posted on 12/15/2016 7:06:00 AM PST by HomerBohn
Salt Lake Tribune) – The $2 million cashier’s check was drawn at a St. George bank Nov. 5, 2010.
From there, it was sent by FedEx to a Los Angeles attorney who represented Ireland-based Full Tilt Poker.
Made out to “Mail Media LTD” — a Full Tilt-owned entity used to launder online-gambling funds — the millions then were deposited at Basler Kantonalbank in Switzerland, where Mail Media had an account.
And from there, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings is investigating whether it went into a Marshall Islands account in the name of Searchlight Holding Inc. to benefit, or even bribe, Harry Reid, the once-powerful majority leader of the U.S. Senate whom online poker companies had been courting to push a bill to legalize their gaming across the nation.
But documents gathered by The Salt Lake Tribune from state and federal investigations, court filings and public records requests — including audio recordings of interviews and thousands of pages of transcripts, summaries by investigators, emails, requests for evidence and other materials — show that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI failed to pursue a vigorous investigation of this money and any potential tie to Reid.
The available evidence contains no direct connection between the money and the Nevada Democrat, only that Rawlings wants to dig into that possibility.
Federal authorities have stymied his effort, leaving Rawlings to wonder why. Were agents ordered to steer clear of that money trail? And, if so, by whom? In short, was there a cover-up?
“Harry Reid is presumed innocent and may actually be innocent,” Rawlings said in a written statement, adding that a “real, vibrant grand jury investigation” could exonerate him.
Even at the state level, though, Rawlings’ push for funding for a grand jury also has stalled. Attorney General Sean Reyes’ office has not turned over any funds for such an inquiry despite months of negotiations.
Reid’s spokeswoman did not return emails and a phone message seeking comment for this story. Previously, his office called any bribery allegations “unsubstantiated” and accused Rawlings of grandstanding to advance his political career.
The FBI declined to answer specific questions but in a joint statement with the Utah Department of Public Safety, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Yi Barker said, “At no time has the FBI or DPS been asked to back off of an investigation of any public official.”
Origins • Rawlings learned about the $2 million check from Jeremy Johnson.
The disgraced St. George businessman, according to transcripts and recordings of investigative interviews, told the prosecutor the money came out of poker funds at now-defunct SunFirst, where Johnson and his partners were illegally processing payments for poker companies. Johnson repeated the story to FBI agents that Reid, who leaves the Senate in January, was going to pocket “a little something extra” for his retirement in exchange for political help.
Johnson’s encounter with the FBI came after the DOJ had aborted an investigation of then-Utah Attorney General John Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff, without filing charges.
The cases were picked up by Rawlings, a Republican, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, a Democrat. The two prosecutors were joined by Utah-based FBI agents, who, documents indicate, focused only on alleged malfeasance by the two former Utah attorneys general.
Indeed, the document trove tied to the criminal probes of Shurtleff and Swallow — along with a federal bank-fraud case that sent Johnson to prison — are notable for the DOJ’s disinterest in the allegations involving Reid.
“The FBI, via the Salt Lake City Field Office, was willing to investigate these allegations … wanted to actively engage,” Rawlings said. “The Salt Lake office was taking steps to do so, but suddenly they were not.”
Lobbying or bribery • The $2 million reached Shurtleff’s radar from Johnson, his longtime friend and campaign donor, who also told the then-attorney general in 2012 about a $250,000 bid to solicit Reid’s help in thwarting a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation of Johnson’s I Works online-marketing company.
Johnson told Shurtleff that the deal involved Swallow, then a top deputy in the Utah Attorney General’s Office, and the late Provo payday-lending magnate Richard Rawle, who had access to Las Vegas attorney Jay Brown, Reid’s friend and sometimes-business partner.
Shurtleff said he asked Johnson why he considered the $250,000 a bribe and not just “straight-up lobbying” money — as Swallow has argued it was.
“He says, ‘because I bribed Harry Reid before,’ ” Shurtleff recalled in an interview with The Tribune.
Johnson went on, the former attorney general said, to tell the story about the poker companies and the $2 million. That prompted Shurtleff to turn to the feds — the U.S. attorney’s office for Utah, the DOJ and the FBI — two times in 2012 and again in 2013 after he left office.
Following the check • One of Rawlings’ requests to federal agencies seeks an email exchange between Full Tilt executives and Johnson that discusses “a wire transfer, or a cashier’s check, for $2,000,000, or any other amount in 2010,” according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Johnson came to believe the $2 million check was meant for Reid after the Nevada senator, according to the businessman, said at a 2010 fundraising event with online-gaming groups that he would push a bill to clear up any doubt and legalize their U.S. operations under federal law.
Rawlings has granted Johnson immunity from prosecution in his investigation, dubbed “Rogue Runner.” In a Jan. 9, 2014, interview that was part of the probe, the prosecutor asked Johnson, “So you actually did give Harry Reid $2 million?”
Johnson replied, according to a transcript, “Well, it wasn’t written to him but—.”
The funds for the SunFirst cashier’s check were in an account for a company called Powder Monkeys, one of the entities set up in St. George in 2010 to process payments for Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The back of the check shows it was deposited into Mail Media’s Swiss account.
A copy of a Nov. 5, 2010, shipping receipt shows the check went via FedEx to Full Tilt’s Los Angeles attorney Ian Imrich, who did not return emails seeking comment.
Documents do not show where the money went, if anywhere, after Switzerland. But on Oct. 27, 2010 — a week before the check was cut — a Marshall Islands bank account was established under the name Searchlight Holding Inc., according to the country’s Reston, Va., business office. Information on who opened the account is not public — whether it was Reid or poker interests or someone else.
Rawlings believes there is a connection between the account and Reid, who has used Searchlight, the name of the Nevada town in which he grew up, with other entities, including his political-action committee, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, and the Harry Reid Searchlight Foundation.
Documents show Rawlings has been trying to obtain evidence from federal agencies about a Searchlight Holding Inc. registered in the Marshall Islands and seven “alleged overseas accounts in the Marshall Islands and Bermuda that purportedly relate to Senator Harry Reid going back to 1997.”
“Harry Reid is presumed innocent and may actually be innocent,” Rawlings said in a written statement, adding that a “real, vibrant grand jury investigation” could exonerate him.
Read somewhere that Reid’s son is heavily involved in Harry’s land deal shenanigans. Glad Reid is finished in the Senate...that one-eyed Jack will go down in history, but not in a good way.
Thanks for the synopsis!
When I read about Harry & the 2 million , the first thing I thought of was the Bundy ranch showdown.
Ping to dirty Harry Reid’s big $ payoff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3504962/posts?page=1#1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3504962/posts?page=22#22
The Mafia has too much class to deal with a chooch like Reid.
HA! My girlfriend thinks I’m the only one that uses the word ‘chooch’.
Thankyou for your summary of what the issue is. That helped a ton!
Unfortunately, America has suffered too long with the miserable SOB in the Senate!
A sharp eye should be kept on the past and present activities of that shifty-eyed Schumer.
Thanks for refreshing our minds about this damned weasel.
IIRC- Dirty Harry Reid’s first job out of school was to be a ‘bagman’ for the mob. He carried CASH from the remote brothels back to the Mob leaders in Las Vegas.
He has been mob connected for a VERY long time.
Mr. Davenport wouldn’t appreciate that wrinkled old backside.
Fitting end to a lousy political career.
(The rest of his filthy life in prison!)
Your welcome...I have been watching this very close...a lot of pay to play; mob; foreign countries and government rats running around...
No reason to post to that site as opposed to the source of the story
*****************
And two other postings on FR......
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3504525/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3503664/posts
How many acres does the Bundy ranch occupy in Utah?
Back in 2012, the New American reported that Harry Reid’s son, Rory Reid, was the chief representative for a Chinese energy firm planning to build a $5-billion solar plant on public land in Laughlin, Nevada.
And journalist Marcus Stern with Reuters also reported that Sen. Reid was heavily involved in the deal as well.
“[Reid] and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert,” he wrote. “Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada.”
“His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.”
Although these reports are in plain view, the mainstream media has so far ignored this link.
The BLM’s official reason for encircling the Bundy family with sniper teams and helicopters was to protect the endangered desert tortoise, which the agency has previously been killing in mass due to “budget constraints.”
“A tortoise isn’t the reason why BLM is harassing a 67 year-old rancher; they want his land,” journalist Dana Loesch wrote. “The tortoise wasn’t of concern when [U.S. Senator] Harry Reid worked with BLM to literally change the boundaries of the tortoise’s habitat to accommodate the development of his top donor, Harvey Whittemore.”
This was the story the media and Dirty Hairy Reid put out, but as you can see there is a lot of land there and it doesn’t ‘surround’ the Bundy Ranch, it ‘includes’ the Bundy Ranch...
And they needed the ‘minerals’ for China to do their project...
“Harry Reid is presumed innocent and may actually be innocent,” Rawlings said in a written statement, adding that a “real, vibrant grand jury investigation” could exonerate him.
First of all it isn’t in Utah as you orginally stated. The land surrounding the Bundy property isn’t the Bundys but rather belongs to the Federal Gov’t. Bundy ran his cattle on it for free for many years. Later the gov’t begin assessing a fee per month per head of cattle. Bundy paid that fee for some years then quit. In other words he wanted to use the land he didn’t own for free, a free loader.
PING!!!
Article and comments, esp #22
A synopsis of was the Bundy ranch showdown.
thanks, HarleyLady27 & H/T WildHighlander57
Harry better watch his back side. His “friends” don’t like publicity : )
As I posted in the article, it isn’t all in Nevada or Utah...and you need to know what is coming out in this trial here in Utah to know how deep this goes...
Shallow, Johnson and the Lt. Gov. are all involved along with Reid, the mob and his son...and China...it all is a large puzzle just like the route of how the money went...
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