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Lieutenant
Joined: 03 Aug 2004
Posts: 213
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 Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject: Interesting politics in Louisiana - Who is singing to FBI? |
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Ray Reggie is Brother in Law of Teddy Kennedy! Is Louisiana still a Banana Republic of the U.S.?
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1114149370214990.xml
| Quote: | Reggie helps in case vs. Clinton aide
Source says calls taped as part of plea
Friday, April 22, 2005
By Gordon Russell and Martha Carr
Staff writers
New Orleans media consultant and Democratic Party operative Ray Reggie worked with the FBI to secretly tape phone conversations that are expected to figure in the case against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's former aide David Rosen as he is tried next month on charges of filing false campaign finance reports, according to a source close to the case.
Reggie's cooperation with the federal probe surfaced Thursday as he pleaded guilty to two federal bank fraud charges unrelated to the Rosen case. One of the bank fraud charges cost Hibernia National Bank $3.5 million, prosecutors said.
Reggie, 43, signed documents essentially conceding his guilt in the bank case in August 2002, yet he was not charged by the government until Feb. 2. In the 30-month gap, Reggie became a government witness in hopes of securing a lesser sentence, the source said.
On Thursday, the New York Sun newspaper, citing court records in the Rosen case, reported that a "mystery witness," described as a Democratic fund-raiser, recorded conversations with Rosen in September 2002. The witness "tried to elicit statements from the former Clinton staffer about financial irregularities involving an August 2000 Hollywood fund-raising event."
The paper also noted that the witness was involved in Clinton's successful Senate campaign in New York and had pleaded guilty to bank fraud.
Reggie's attorney, Mike Ellis, would not confirm whether his client was cooperating in the Rosen case. Rosen's attorney, Paul Sandler of Baltimore, declined to comment. Acting New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and David Dugas, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana -- where one of Reggie's bank fraud charges originated -- also refused to comment.
A source close to the case confirmed Thursday that at least one phone call between Reggie and Rosen was taped with Reggie's knowledge. Reggie worked on Clinton's campaign alongside Rosen, helping the Democratic candidate raise millions of dollars for her Senate campaign.
Clinton is not considered a target of the probe, which is led by the public integrity section of the Justice Department. No conversations between Reggie and Clinton were recorded, the source said.
Other cases mentioned
The Sun's article, without naming Reggie, attributes to the "mystery witness" several other characteristics that describe him. A November 2004 memo by prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg, for instance, notes that the "CW (confidential witness) is related to an extremely prominent and well-known political figure."
Reggie's sister, Victoria, is married to U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. His father, retired Crowley city Judge Edmund Reggie, is a longtime Democratic Party power broker and a close confidant of former Gov. Edwin Edwards. [Edwards still in prison]
The documents cited by the Sun suggest the FBI has sought to use Reggie as an informant in other probes as well. In the same memo, prosecutors wrote that the federal investigators wanted to use their witness in an inquiry into "a prominent political figure who may be involved in illegally soliciting foreign nationals to contribute to national political campaigns," the Sun reported.
The FBI also asked the witness to tape calls "with targets of an investigation into alleged political corruption in Louisiana," the newspaper said. The scheme described in the memo involved an unnamed state senator and a "fraudulent contract worth $5 million."
Though Reggie has close ties to former Mayor Marc Morial, whose administration has been under close scrutiny by Letten's office, the Sun makes no mention of Reggie providing information related to that probe.
Hard money, soft money
The Rosen case involves alleged violations of complex federal regulations governing campaign donations -- in particular the distinction between "hard" money, which can be spent directly on behalf of a campaign, and "soft" money, which must be used for more general advocacy.
In brief, the government claims that the Clinton campaign underreported the cost of a lavish, star-studded Hollywood event that Reggie helped plan. The effect was to increase the residual amount of hard money available to the campaign.
Rosen is charged with three counts of filing fictitious reports in connection with the gala, a combination fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton and tribute to outgoing President Clinton. Federal prosecutors allege that Rosen reported the event's cost at $401,419 when it actually cost at least $1.2 million. The event raised more than $1 million, according to the indictment against Rosen.
As the chief finance director for Hillary Clinton's campaign, Rosen was responsible for all planning for the event, according to the indictment. Rosen is also accused of obtaining and delivering a false invoice stating that the cost of a concert staged as part of the event was $200,000, when it actually cost more than $600,000.
The gala's organizers included Hollywood producer Peter Paul, a convicted felon now facing stock fraud charges in New York, and charity fund-raiser Aaron Tonken, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to charges of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors and underwriters of Hollywood events he organized, including the August 2000 gala.
Paul reportedly has been cooperating with prosecutors.
The indictment comes at a time when Hillary Clinton is considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, and faces the prospect of challenges in 2006 for her Senate seat from former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Gov. George Pataki, both Republicans.
Clinton lawyers have said her Senate campaign committee is fully cooperating with the investigation and that they expect Rosen to be cleared.
Rosen told the confidential witness in the case that although the campaign reported spending $600,000 on the event, "We probably spent a million," according to a transcript of the conversation quoted in the Sun.
In the same conversation, Rosen is quoted as explaining that the cost of the event was a problem, leading to the shifting of funds. "You rarely wanna do 50 cents to raise a dollar," the Sun quoted him as saying. "You have to pay the percentage out of the income. So we would have to move hard to soft. Not the other way around."
Go-to guy
Reggie signed on as a fund-raiser and media strategist for Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign after years spent forging a close relationship with her husband.
A fast-rising star in Democratic fund-raising circles, Reggie volunteered in Bill Clinton's first bid for the White House in 1992. After Clinton became president, the two struck up a pen-pal relationship and eventually became friends.
Reggie was invited to state dinners, traveled with the president on Air Force One, and was among a select group allowed to spend the night at the White House.
Reggie was also Clinton's go-to guy whenever the president visited New Orleans. He regularly planned high-end fund-raising dinners, accompanied the president to fancy restaurants, and once persuaded the owners of Snug Harbor to make room for the ex-president in a sold-out show.
Family tradition
Reggie is a native of Crowley, an Acadiana hamlet that has produced an improbable number of Louisiana's best-known political figures, among them Edwards, former U.S. Sen. John Breaux, former U.S. Rep. Chris John and New Orleans lawyer and dealmaker William Broadhurst.
Reggie's father, Edmund Reggie, forged a close relationship with John F. Kennedy after persuading Louisiana's delegation to support Kennedy's failed bid to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1956, four years before Kennedy won the presidency. In 1992, the marriage of Ray Reggie's sister to Ted Kennedy cemented the bonds between the two families.
Like his son, Edmund Reggie was the target of federal prosecutors. In 1993, he was fined $30,000 and sentenced to four months of home confinement after he was convicted on one count and pleaded no contest to another count of misusing bank funds.
Though Edmund Reggie is the only member of the family to have held political office, both he and Ray Reggie have acquired reputations as talented political fixers.
Two years ago, for instance, the Kennedy family asked Edmund Reggie to broker an agreement between warring political factions so green space resulting from the Big Dig project in Boston could be dedicated as a park honoring the Kennedy matriarch, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. The senior Reggie moved into a Boston apartment to get the deal done.
In addition to his work on campaigns for both Clintons, Ray Reggie worked on former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential bid and helped raise money for U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a close friend who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Locally, he worked on the mayoral campaigns of Marc Morial and former New Orleans Police Superintendent Richard Pennington.
Legal about-face
In federal court Thursday, Reggie reversed earlier innocent pleas and pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of bank fraud conspiracy involving three banks: Union Planters Bank in Baton Rouge, and Whitney National Bank and Hibernia National Bank in New Orleans.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier set sentencing for Oct. 26.
The conspiracy count carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and the bank fraud charge carries up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Though written terms of the plea agreement were not available Thursday, Ellis, Reggie's lawyer, said prosecutors have agreed in principle to "cap" Reggie's sentence at a maximum of five years in prison. The sentence could be far less -- depending, presumably, on the level of his cooperation.
Though judges tend to accept such agreements, they are not bound by them. Barbier, who was nominated by President Clinton, is free to ignore the agreement and use his discretion in sentencing Reggie, Ellis said.
According to a summary of the bank fraud case filed by Letten's office Thursday, Reggie's legal troubles date to 1999, when he began making "cross deposits" into business accounts at Union Planters and Whitney banks, artificially inflating the balances in both accounts.
At one point, the Union Planters account "was left with a negative balance of $4,230,793," the summary says. However, Reggie later made that bank whole, the summary says, in part by taking out a $6 million line of credit from Hibernia.
As collateral for the Hibernia loan, Reggie provided a contract worth $18.5 million that his company, Media Direct, had allegedly signed with the U.S. Census Bureau. But the contract, and other supporting documentation, was bogus, prosecutors say.
Some of the documents were signed under an assumed name by Lisa Blanchard, who worked for Reggie, the summary says. Blanchard purported to be a "contracting officer" at the Census Bureau named "Michelle A. Dinkins."
Blanchard has not been charged. Eddie Castaing, her lawyer, said he had no comment.
Hibernia lost "approximately $3.5 million as a result of the loan to Reggie," the case summary said.
. . . . . . .
Frank Donze contributed to this article.
Gordon Russell can be reached at grussell@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3307. Martha Carr can be reached at mcarr@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3306. |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2005 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Josh Gerstein at the NY Sun had this story:
| Quote: | A Kennedy Relative Acted as Informant in Democrat Circles
BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 22, 2005
A New Orleans political consultant who is Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie, has been operating in Democratic circles for the last three years as an undercover informant for the FBI, sources close to the matter said yesterday.
At a federal court hearing yesterday morning, Reggie, 43, who organized fund-raisers for President and Mrs. Clinton, pleaded guilty to two felony charges, bank fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors described check-kiting and loan fraud schemes he operated involving three Louisiana banks, but they did not publicly detail his cooperation with the government.
The New York Sun reported yesterday that an unnamed witness with ties to a prominent political figure has been involved in recent federal investigations of campaign fund-raising violations, including a probe into alleged financial misreporting in Mrs. Clinton's bid for the Senate in 2000. The informant, described in court papers only as a "confidential witness," was part of an FBI plan to secretly audiotape conversations with political operatives, including a well-known person who prosecutors said was seeking to funnel donations from foreigners to federal campaigns.
Several people with knowledge of the case identified Reggie as the informant described in the Sun article. ~snip~........
.....~snip~The disclosure that Reggie was surreptitiously recording conversations for the FBI may have caused some heartburn yesterday for Democrats who have had contact with him since 2002.
Reggie was a regular presence at Mr. Clinton's side when he visited New Orleans during his presidency and thereafter. Just last September, Mr. Clinton had lunch in that city with Reggie, as the former president swung through town to sign his autobiography and attend a $10,000-a-head Democratic Party fund-raiser, the Times-Picayune newspaper reported. A former congresswoman and ambassador to the Vatican, Lindy Boggs, joined Reggie and Mr. Clinton at the lunch, as did two federal judges whom Mr. Clinton appointed.
When Mrs. Clinton traveled to New Orleans in May 2000 to raise $100,000 for her Senate campaign, Reggie was on the host committee.
An attorney for the Clintons, David Kendall, had no immediate response yesterday to questions about Reggie's role in Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign or about the possibility that Reggie might have taped one or both of the Clintons.~snip~............ |
Continued at: http://www.nysun.com/article/12645
I hope Mr. Reggie has armed guards with him 24/7.
You know how those "Arkancides" happen to those who
present a threat to the Clintons!!
I also think Mr. Reggie should not be taking any car rides with Teddy
across the bridge at Chappaquidick!!
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Beatrice1000
Resource Specialist
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1179
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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| Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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This is a rather mucked-up affair – interesting to read about these shady characters associated with the Kennedy/Clintons… sounds like it is assumed that Hillary had absolutely no knowledge of what her fund-raising director was doing…. yup, not interested in the funds$$$ -- she didn’t know a thing about it:
| Quote: | 4/23/05: “Kennedy Relative Tied to Fund-Raising Case,” by Raymond Hernandez, NYTimes.com
(emphasis added)
WASHINGTON, April 22 - A brother-in-law of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has been working as a confidential informant in a criminal case against Hillary Rodham Clinton's former fund-raising director, according to people involved in the case.
The brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie of Louisiana, has apparently been acting as an undercover informant in the case and secretly recorded a conversation he had with Mrs. Clinton's former fund-raising director during a steak dinner. In that conversation, the two discussed a 2000 fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton that is at the center of the federal government's criminal investigation, those with knowledge of the case say.
The precise nature of the conversation is not clear. But those familiar with the case said that federal authorities intend to use Mr. Reggie as a witness in their case against David Rosen, the finance director of Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, who is accused of illegally underreporting the cost of the fund-raiser held for Mrs. Clinton. His role as a possible witness in the case was first reported Friday in The New York Sun and The New York Post.
Mr. Reggie, who comes from a politically prominent Louisiana family, pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Thursday as part of a plea bargain in an unrelated case in New Orleans. He had been accused of taking part in a scheme to cheat banks out of money.
Mr. Reggie has been involved in Democratic politics for years, including work he has done for the campaigns of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Mrs. Clinton, among others. He has a friendship with Mr. Clinton that dates to at least 1996, according to one person familiar with the two men, and has been an overnight guest of the Clintons at the White House.
Mr. Reggie's sister, Victoria, is married to Senator Kennedy. And his father, Edmund, was an influential municipal judge in Crowley, La., who was a friend of former President John F. Kennedy, as well as a close adviser to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who served four terms in office before being sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for extortion in 2001.
News that Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law has been secretly working with federal authorities in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton's former fund-raising director provides a strange new twist in a case that already stands out for its unlikely cast of characters.
At the center of the fund-raising inquiry is Peter Paul, a well-connected figure with a criminal past who says he helped organize the fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign to win former President Clinton's support for a business venture. The fund-raiser, a Hollywood gala held in August 2000, drew some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry and raised more than $1 million for Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign in New York. But in the months after the event, Mr. Paul - whose record includes pleading guilty to possessing cocaine and attempting to defraud Fidel Castro's government out of millions of dollars in 1979 - turned bitterly on the Clintons.
He accused the Clinton campaign of falsely reporting that the August 2000 gala cost far less than the nearly $2 million he claims to have spent to organize the event. In January of this year, federal authorities produced an indictment charging that Mr. Rosen had underreported the cost of the affair. The indictment was largely based on the claims of Mr. Paul, who has been cooperating with prosecutors, according to people involved in the case. The indictment accuses Mr. Rosen of falsely reporting that the August 2000 gala cost $401,419. Prosecutors are apparently working under the theory that underreporting the cost of the affair would have freed up additional dollars to spend on the campaign itself, under a complicated series of campaign-finance formulas governing such expenditures.
But people involved in Mrs. Clinton's 2000 campaign say that underreporting would not have produced any financial benefit.
Federal prosecutors have turned over to Mr. Rosen's lawyers a transcript of the taped conversation between Mr. Reggie and Mr. Rosen, because Mr. Reggie apparently will be called as a prosecution witness at Mr. Rosen's coming trial, according to people involved in the case. In the tapes, Mr. Reggie apparently manages to steer the conversation with Mr. Rosen in the direction of a discussion about the production costs of the 2000 fund-raising event, according to one person involved in the case. Mr. Rosen, in turn, apparently told Mr. Reggie of his frustration at having had to deal with Mr. Paul and described Mr. Paul as an unreliable character, according to people involved in the case.
Paul Sandler, Mr. Rosen's lawyer, declined to comment for this article. Neither Mr. Reggie's lawyer nor a spokesman of the Justice Department responded to phone messages seeking comment. Mr. Reggie has apparently been cooperating with federal authorities since 2002, when he taped the conversation he had with Mr. Rosen, according to one person involved in the case. |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | But people involved in Mrs. Clinton's 2000 campaign say that underreporting would not have produced any financial benefit. |
This is a lie!!!
I heard Dick Morris on Hannity explaining that the under-reporting saved her campaign more than
$500,000 in hard money, which it could spend on her Senate campaign.
This was after Rick Lazio had gotten
her to say publicly that she would no longer use of soft money in her campaign.
The fundraiser take, after expenses, is considered hard money by the FEC regulations.
The event cost about a million dollars, but Rosen reported the expenses were only $400,000. He was
fudging the numbers for Hillary's benefit, and that's breaking Federal law.
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Beatrice1000
Resource Specialist
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1179
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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Dick Morris explains the windfall to Hillary's Campaign in
Today's NY POST:
| Quote: | HOW HILL GAINED
Dick Morris
April 25, 2005
-- DAVID Rosen, the national finance Director for Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, goes on trial May 3 on charges of breaking federal campaign law. The senator's spokespeople insist that she didn't gain from the alleged crime — that the campaign realized no financial benefit from Rosen's understating the costs of a gala Clinton Hollywood fund-raiser.
Not true. Hillary's campaign realized not just a huge benefit, but one critical to her election chances.
Under the arcane rules of the Federal Election Commission at the time, campaigns could use soft money to pay for fund-raising events — provided the gathering's costs came to 40 percent or less of the total of hard money raised. (Soft money was far easier to raise: Donors could give up to $25,000 of soft money, but only $1,000 of hard money).
Hillary's Hollywood gala that raised $1 million in hard money that August. This meant that the campaign could use soft money to pay for all costs up to $400,000. David Rosen conveniently reported to the campaign treasurer that the event did, indeed, cost $400,000, avoiding the necessity of spending any hard money on the affair.
But the federal indictment of Rosen, FBI affidavits and the testimony of the event organizers — Peter Paul and Aaron Tonkin — all confirm that the extravaganza's true cost was at least $1.2 million. Press leaks suggests that the feds may have Rosen on tape acknowledging that he understated the cost of the event on purpose.
Here's why he would have done it: If the real cost of the event were $1.2 million instead of $400,000, the campaign would have had to use hard money to make up the difference. The Hillary Clinton campaign would have had $800,000 less of hard money to spend running TV ads and funding get-out-the-vote operations.
And, at the time of that fund-raiser, Rick Lazio, the GOP candidate, had challenged Hillary to refuse to accept soft money. He found himself awash in hard money — small checks from Hillary haters across the country. But First Lady Hillary Clinton was heavily dependent on large checks from fat-cat donors whom she and the president wined, dined, photographed, and hosted at the White House. And these folks gave a lot more than $1,000 each.
Hillary temporized and delayed, but the handwriting was on the wall. On Sept. 24, the candidates agreed on a soft-money ban. Now she had to pay for it all with hard money. And she was hard up for hard money.
So if Rosen had owned up to the full cost of the fundraiser, the campaign would have had to cough up $800,000 of hard money at exactly the time that it needed the funds the most.
Did Hillary know? Paul and Tonken say she did, and it seems obvious that she must have: Hillary followed every dime in her campaign, personally calling donors for most of it. How could she possibly not have known of a decision that saved her $800,000?
But the person who knows if she knew is David Rosen. If found guilty, he faces a potential sentence of 15 years. If the feds threaten him with jail — and it's hard to see how they wouldn't —Rosen faces a choice: Tell the truth or go to prison.
Rosen is no long-term Clinton loyalist like Webb Hubbell, nor did he have an affair with a Clinton (as Bill implied to me that Susan McDougal did). And there is no Clinton in the White House to pardon him if he goes to prison.
David Rosen is a young man in his late 30s, with a life ahead of him. He would be a fool to go to jail to protect Hillary.
If he did, she wouldn't even visit him. |
http://nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/45233.htm
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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