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Fund-raiser Norman Hsu: Dismiss rap, give back my $2M bailBY NANCY DILLON DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF Saturday, September 29th 2007, 4:00 AM REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Jailed fund-raiser Norman Hsu wants his 15-year-old fraud rap dismissed on a technicality and a full refund on the $2 million bail he skipped out on three weeks ago, his lawyers said yesterday. Hsu looked frail in a waist shackle and orange jail uniform as he appeared in a San Mateo County court. He uttered only a single "yes" when Judge Stephen Hall asked if he had agreed to a five-week postponement...

For the past six years, the road to Bill Clinton has often run through Douglas Band, a 34-year-old former White House intern who has helped manage Mr. Clinton's time, accompanied him around the world and even fielded some of his calls. Two years ago, Mr. Band befriended a handsome and charming Italian businessman named Raffaello Follieri. The young Italian, now 29 years old, had moved to New York in 2003 to launch a business buying and redeveloping Roman Catholic Church properties. He claimed close ties with Vatican officials that would smooth the way for deals, according to business associates and...

Sooner would have been much better than later09/25/2007 The Buffalo News It's the right move for the Clinton campaign to return $850,000 in tainted donations, but for a number of reasons, including another fundraising debacle involving a candidate named Clinton, it would have been far better to have done it sooner. Questions about fundraiser Norman Hsu had been raised as early as June. Still, it took until recently for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to announce that she would return that money - the largest amount ever returned by a single candidate - and cut ties with Hsu. In the meantime,...

No phony businesses or great train escapes in this one, alas, but on the upside it’s much easier to follow the money. One HillRaiser suspected of laundering contributions through frontmen is a fluke; two is a pattern. When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband’s boss for the donations. “It wasn’t personal money. It was all corporate money,” Mrs. Layton said outside her...

Norman Hsu, the Democratic fund-raiser who was a fugitive from the law, was charged today with bilking investors of at least $60 million in a nationwide Ponzi scheme, tens of thousands of dollars of which was funneled by way of “straw donors” to candidates for national office in violation of federal election law. In a complaint unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Hsu, 56, was accused of strong-arming his investors into giving money to various political causes and to candidates running for president, Senate and the House of Representatives. One of those candidates was Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Norman Hsu Also Charged With Committing Campaign Finance Crimes Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu confessed to federal agents that he orchestrated a massive fraud scheme and pressured his investors into donating money to political candidates, according to a criminal complaint unsealed by the Justice Department today. The U.S. attorney for New York's southern district today filed the criminal charges against Hsu for allegedly putting together the $60 million pyramid fraud scheme and committing related federal campaign finance crimes. The complaint against Hsu alleges that he took money from a broad group of investors in California, New York and New Jersey, always...

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint Thursday charging Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu with breaking campaign finance laws and creating a "massive" Ponzi scheme.

Poll: Clinton's lead grows, Thompson tops Giuliani Other Candidates Still a Long Way behind Published on: 09/20/07 ROCHESTER, N.Y. — After officially declaring his candidacy, U.S. Senator Fred Thompson moves ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who...

A list of the donors who have "bundled" large sums from dozens of individuals to give to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign includes several figures who were involved in the 1990s Democratic Party fundraising scandal that tarnished her husband's record. Among them is an Oklahoma oilman who testified in the mid-1990s that the firm he worked for, owned by Democratic fundraisers, sought to curry favor with Bill Clinton's administration by providing payments and a golf club membership to a Cabinet secretary's son. Democrat John Edwards's list of bundlers includes well-known fellow trial lawyer William S. Lerach, who raised $80,000 from...

A New York investment group run by one of the promoters of the 1969 Woodstock festival has sued disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu for allegedly funneling $40 million in financing for a nonexistent clothing company into political campaign contributions and an "extravagant international lifestyle." The lawsuit brought by Source Financing Investors LLC says Hsu fooled investors into believing they were financing an operation to supply Chinese-made clothes to U.S. retailers when in fact he was running a Ponzi scheme, in which initial investments are repaid with money from subsequent investments until the operation collapses. Hsu, 56, was convicted in San...