Posted on 10/02/2002 3:23:13 PM PDT by Liz
BACKGROUND FROM OTHER SOURCES
Questions have ....been raised about a 1992 "sweetheart deal" stock purchase in which Torricelli obtained an unsecured loan in order to buy shares in a hugely profitable offering - not open to the general public - in a local savings-and-loan association headed by a longtime friend.
In August 2002, the former president of a defunct Hackensack brokerage firm was sentenced to nine months in prison Monday for making illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Robert G. Torricelli and former President Bill Clinton, as well as manipulating the prices of stocks.
Lawrence Penna, 58, of Edgewater pleaded guilty in October 1999 to illegally funneling $20,000 to Torricelli's 1996 campaign and up to $12,000 to Clinton's reelection campaign by reimbursing "straw donors" after personally contributing the maximum.
Federal election laws limit individuals to donating no more than $1,000 per election, and prohibit one donor from reimbursing another. Torricelli spokeswoman Debra DeShong said the senator was not aware of Penna's illegal activities. The Senate's Ethics Committee reviewed the investigation's findings. Although it "severely admonished" Torricelli for taking gifts from a contributor without disclosing them, its final letter made no mention of illegal donations that have led to the convictions of seven other Torricelli contributors. Penna also admitted to lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission when it investigated stock trades by his firm, Investors Associates Inc.
U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered Penna to serve nine months even though a presentencing report recommended six months and Penna's lawyers argued for no jail time because he has heart disease and a sick daughter who relies on him for care.
Penna also admitted that he and two colleagues from Investors Associates conspired to make $36 million in illegal profits by manipulating five initial public stock offerings between 1995 and 1997.
In addition to ordering him to surrender to authorities no later than Oct. 4, Preska said Penna will have to reimburse the full $36 million. Once he is released from prison, he will have to pay no less than 10 percent of his gross pay monthly as restitution.
Defense lawyer Ronald Fischetti, who represents Penna, said in court his client cooperated with federal investigators probing stock trading and Torricelli donations.
Through Investors Associates, Penna also illegally coordinated the prices of five IPOs, including one for Compare Generiks Inc., a Long Island drug distributor.
Torricelli's blind trust made a one-day profit of more than $50,000 investing in Compare Generiks, even though other investors lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on the stock.
In an interview in 1999, the trust's executor, Matthew Gohd of Las Vegas-based Whale Securities, dismissed any connection between campaign contributions and stock profit.
He said he had no idea Investors Associates had inflated the price of the stock. If Torricelli had directed Gohd to buy the stock, it would have violated the guidelines for his blind trust.
But Bruno said Penna dealt with Gohd on the transaction and that Torricelli was not involved. "As far as Larry knows, the senator didn't know anything about it," Bruno said. "He would have no reason to protect [Torricelli] at this point."
Revelation 9
1The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
2When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
3And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
5They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
6During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
What about the Clinton Library, can he give it to the Clinton Library?
So it is my understanding that he must use the money to try to get elected to a federal office or give the money to some other political campaign or give it to a political party.
DITTO !!!
Regarding Ethically Challenged Liberal DIMocRATS:
To: MeeknMing
Democrats are a strange bunch especially their leaders. They complain about politics of personnel destruction when that is how they try to divide the country. They have little pride in America, it seems that the American people serve for their pleasure only. If you don't cotton to the democratic line, you aren't American. They used the surplus for other countries and other people when there was much to do here at home. They take our best technologies and sell them to nations that will use the knowledge against us. They lack an enormous amount of integrity and don't seem to care as they flaunt sleazy ethics and morality in our faces.
We didn't have a government for the people under the Clinton administration, what we had was a Democrats Only need apply type of government and now they are attempting to replace a People's Government with their tired old arguments about an education system they didn't fix in 8 years, a health care program they messed up and couldn't fix in 8 years, a social security system they say needs fixing and did nothing about it in 8 years when in reality that system is fine as long as lawmakers don't spend the money that social security is meant for; they spent 8 years hiring federal workers with no qualifications as long as it meant a democratic vote leaving behind a dumbed down, bloated army of sleazy federal laborers who have plundered their departments of millions in dollars and equipment.
Democrats seem to have no respect, no real base from which true justice can spring, only justice that bends for them. They have no enthusiasm for country/nation, no pride, just the spoils from a rich nation for the DNC. They continue to huddle with shady and corrupt people both here in America and abroad for reasons that only benefit them. They are elitists and exclude the real Americans as they race for the Marxist Utopia they have dreamed about...where individual successes are discouraged in favor of a commune like population. They have learned nothing from failed socialism or failed communism; they still want to live like kings all the while painting a glowing picture of togetherness for the masses who work for them. It is called Slavery, servitude to a few at the top, domination over the people through higher taxes and rules and regulations. Democrats want a Unionized nation/world of bondage and they can surely have it by dividing the country with the deceptive lies they and the press propagandize with daily.
Stand tall Americans and stand firmly for the principals of our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, both of which are like the fabled Vampires silver cross or spike to the leading democrats, they don't want you to have either; it is these people who would return this country to the quagmire of corruption of the Clinton/Gore/Reno years.
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