Simon's campaign takes a hit

A Republican official close to both the Simon campaign and the White House said angry administration officials called the Simon campaign yesterday to complain that the Simon team never alerted the Bush political team in Washington about the lawsuit.

Mr. Bush had three visits scheduled this month to help Mr. Simon raise money, and Vice President Dick Cheney had one trip scheduled, but those visits "now look iffy," the official said.

Bill Simon was not named in the lawsuit. Paul Hindelang is a drug smuggler but I guarantee you'll never hear so much as mention of it in the liberal media. I don't think Simon's firm was guilty of anything more than failing to vet the wrong guy as throughly as it should have and wanting to terminate a business dealing with him after his unsavory background was discovered shouldn't have been cause to slap Simon's firm with a fraud verdict. Everyone can see it but that Los Angeles jury.

A few facts:

Bill Simon was deposed, but was not asked to testify, and he did not testify in his own behalf. Most likely this investment was made and controlled by others within his family's organization. His family is not him.
The plaintiff apparently claimed that the Simon firm bought 60% of his company saying they would build the business gradually instead of trying to increase its size on the way to a public offering. His claim was that he disagreed with bringing the company public. I find this extremely difficult to believe, since Simon's firm is - after all - a venture capital firm, and I would think someone with the plaintiff's background would be very intrigued by the potential riches going public would produce.
The Simon camp's story is that they fired him after learning about his past.
I remember reading a few stories talking about fraud and manipulation in the pay phone industry itself. It's very possible that the Simon camp actually found that they had bought much less of a company than they originally thought. This is something that has happened previously in this industry.
The Simon camp failed in taking the company public, most likely for the reason listed immediately above.

In view of the above mix of facts and speculation, I'm inclined to give Simon the benefit of the doubt. It sounds bad, when Davis says it in a 15 second sound bite, but it might not be nearly as bad as it sounds.

Does anyone have a link to more detailed information on the case?

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