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Nearly $65 million of your taxpayer dollars were poured into the newly-opened top-of-the-line J.W. Marriott Hotel in Downtown Indianapolis developed by White Lodging, which is owned by the billionaire Dean White family. The Whites hosted a glitzy party last night that featured entertainment by Diana Ross attended by Mayor Greg Ballard and all the other downtown elites who stuffed your taxpayer dollars into the Whites' deep pockets to make the new hotel possible, but you weren't invited. The invited guests were also treated to a free night's stay at the hotel. The Star's Cathy Kightlinger reports on last night's soiree to reward the downtown elites:
Dressed from head to toe in red, Motown-era superstar Diana Ross burst from behind a curtain and began belting out hits Saturday at the opening celebration for Downtown's new JW Marriott hotel.
Ross' performance at the party -- organized for about 1,000 -- was a well-kept secret until minutes before she appeared on stage and wowed the crowd with a series of iconic songs, including "I'm Coming Out," "Baby Love," "Stop! In the Name of Love" and "Love Child."
The 33-floor, 1,005-room JW Marriott's opening earlier this month marked the last phase of the $450 million Marriott Place hotel complex at West and Washington streets.
It brought the city the mega- hotel needed to attract the largest of trade shows and sporting events, including the NFL Super Bowl coming a year from now.
But Saturday's over-the-top party was all about thanking the people who helped build the hotel, showing it to meeting planners and celebrating, said Bruce White, chairman and CEO of White Lodging, the Merrillville hotel developer and operator that is the main partner in the project.
Most of those at the party spent the night in the hotel, he said.
Hotel officials considered a list of iconic entertainers for its opening, but they decided on Ross because of her broad appeal, White said.
"We wanted somebody who we thought conveyed the image of the JW in terms of class, and somebody that would resonate with the diverse nature of our guests," he said.
Among those who attended the party were dozens of the city's civic and business leaders, including Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and his wife, Winnie.
White's comment about Ross being chosen as the entertainment because her appearance conveyed the JW in "terms of class" and somebody that would resonate with the "diverse nature of our guests" is quite laughable. Ross is among the many has-been performers who regularly appear at White Lodging's Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Indiana. Ross made a splash during a presentation at the 2002 VMA awards when she greeted rapper/singer Lil' Kim, who was dressed in a purple wig and a purple-sequined pantsuit minus half of her top, by jiggling her naked breast on live TV. A month after that same incident Ross was back in the news after she was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport for assaulting a female security guard because she said she felt violated by the security guard during a full-body search. She also served a 2-day sentence for a drunk driving arrest in Tucson, Arizona a few years ago.
Ross was a close friend of the late Michael Jackson and was named in his will as the custodian for his two children in the event of the death of his mother Katherine Jackson. Ross declined an invitation to speak at an L.A. memorial service in honor of the pop star's life in 2009. Ross' absence from the memorial service stunned Jackson's family. Smokey Robinson read a letter from Ross at the service instead. "When Smokey read out Diana's letter, there were a lot of people's heads turning and shrugging in those front rows." In her statement, Diana insisted it just felt "right" to not attend. A real touch of class, eh?
I'm wondering if Greg and Winnie got a free night's stay at the hotel last night. Who got dibs on the three presidential suites at the new hotel, aside from Ross? A friend of mine, who is a frequent business traveler, often stays at Marriott hotels across the country and wondered why his platinum elite membership didn't warrant an invitation to last night's party. It must have got lost in the mail. So much for brand loyalty. Let's see how many of Indy's politicians who received this generous gift from the Whites report it on their statement of economic interest.
UPDATE: While we're on the subject of the world's longest running Ponzi scheme (a.k.a. as Downtown Indianapolis), did you notice the Star finally woke up and discovered all those billions of public subsidies being dumped into downtown projects aren't benefiting the neighborhoods beyond the Mile Square? The Star's Erika Smith has the story on Indy's neighborhood blights:
Drive east out of Downtown Indianapolis, and signs of urban decay are easy to find:
Boarded-up houses. Crumbling sidewalks. Storefronts ensconced in security gates. Potholes that will gut a car's underside if hit at the wrong speed or angle. Teddy bears stacked by the roadside as memorials to shooting victims. People selling everything from rugs to baby strollers on their front lawns to help make ends meet.
But something else can be found below the surface: hope.
The Near Eastside -- with its striking new community center, pockets of renovated homes, bike lanes, co-op grocery store and an art gallery that offers yoga classes -- represents, in many ways, the art of the possible for struggling neighborhoods in Indianapolis.
The neighborhood isn't perfect, but it's getting better. Many neighborhoods can't say that much.
Chipping away at that urban decay is crucial because neighborhoods are the foundation of any city. The condition of our neighborhoods -- and the commitment to them from residents who live there -- will help determine whether Indianapolis prospers or withers in the years ahead.
"You know why the Near Eastside is doing so well? They were organized, and they were ready to receive the help," Mayor Greg Ballard said of the residents. "Other people aren't necessarily as ready to receive it as we would like them to be."
Of course, not every neighborhood in Indianapolis is in bad shape. Far from it. But as the city prepares to put forward the best possible face for next year's Super Bowl, visitors won't have to venture far from Downtown to find neighborhoods unlikely to make it on any postcard.
Travel in any direction from Lucas Oil Stadium and within minutes, you'll end up in a neighborhood where blight has set down deep roots.
To the northeast and northwest, neighborhoods such as Martindale-Brightwood and Haughville are dotted with abandoned houses, unkempt lots and reputations for violent crime, even though theft and vandalism are more common.
To the southwest, neighborhoods such as Mars Hill and Maywood are stocked with aging, single-family homes. Massive industrial plants, some shuttered, surround these bedroom communities near the South Side Landfill. Until the city recently fixed the problem, flooding wracked the area when it rained.
Of course it wouldn't be a story about Indianapolis without mentioning the Super Bowl and how much its f_ _ _ _ing legacy project is going to help the city's near eastside. These people are clueless.
On the subject of the clueless, I received a call from a reporter for Crain's Chicago Business the other day wanting to know what I could tell her about our former ICVA chief who recently headed up to the Windy City for a higher paying--much higher paying job. Of course I told her he was a big bag of wind who never stayed in a job long enough to prove how full of it he is. Judging from her story, she kind of agreed. Less than a month on the job in Chicago at his $390,000 base pay job, Don Welsh is demanding a doubling of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau's annual budget from $14 million to nearly $30 million. Crain's Brigid Sweeney writes:
You're a brand-new public face in Chicago, so what do you do after wrangling a 50% hike in base salary over your predecessor?
If you're Don Welsh, the new head of the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, you ask for a bigger budget.
“There's no way we can accomplish what we want to accomplish based on current funding,” which is $14.1 million, he says. “We're looking to be at $25 to $30 million.” . . . .
Mr. Welsh is used to thinking big. In 2009, he asked Indianapolis' Capital Improvement Board, which provides about 70% of the convention association's budget, for an additional $3 million to $5 million a year over three years to increase marketing. The cash-strapped board gave him just $100,000 more.
He didn't give up. Mr. Welsh secured two multiyear funding sources, a $1.5-million city appropriation and a $5.4-million grant from the Dean and Barbara White Foundation, an organization founded by Mr. White, an Indiana billboard and hotel billionaire. Together, they effectively increased his 2011 budget to $13.9 million from $11 million . . .
Mr. Welsh’s hop-scotching work history makes it difficult to assess the impact of his efforts. He stayed in Indiana for 21/2 years, leaving just weeks before the expanded convention center and new hotel opened, and held the top role at Seattle's tourism bureau for just two years before that.
“He bailed right when the rubber hits the road,” says Gary Welsh (no relation), an Indianapolis lawyer who writes a political blog, AdvanceIndiana.com. “We don't know if all the investment will pay off.”
I'm sure as the ICVA goes about searching for Welsh's replacement here, they will make the case that the annual salary Welsh was paid here, more than a quarter of a million dollars, just won't cut it. His predecessor in Chicago was earning a measly $260,000 a year. In the words of P.T. Barnum, "There's a sucker born every minute."
Gov. Mitch Daniels is urging Indiana lawmakers to relax sentencing laws to give judges more discretion in meting out punishment to criminal offenders in an effort to reduce the cost of incarcerating prisoners in the state correctional system, particularly those offenders who are deemed non-violent. The recent execution-style murder of Indianapolis police officer David Moore by 11-time convicted felon Thomas Hardy, a designated "non-violent offender" who had been mistakenly let out of jail after violating the terms of his parole due to comedy of errors made by corrections officials, has given pause to lawmakers to put more criminals back on the streets simply to squeeze additional savings out of the state budget. As chilling as the consequences in Hardy's case were, it is a bit of a stretch to lay the blame for this mistake at Gov. Daniels' door. Several people have expressed to me their concern, however, of what they see as a pattern of the governor making politically expedient decisions that collide with the public interest. One glaring example they've shown me is a gubernatorial pardon issued in 2007 by Gov. Daniels to one Steven Quick, the president of the local public employees union in Indianapolis, AFSCME Local 725, for an old criminal conviction.
Quick has been a big supporter of Republicans like Gov. Daniels, former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith and current Mayor Greg Ballard. Critics view it as a bit of an oddity for a public employees union boss to support elected officials who are outspoken proponents of privatization efforts that often turn government workers out of their jobs, or who in the case of Gov. Daniels as one of his first acts as governor, repealed an executive order put into place by his Democratic predecessors that recognized collective bargaining rights for the very public employees Quick's union represents. Critics wonder how a man who supports candidates who seem to be anathema to the views of rank-and-file AFSCME members can even be elected as a union leader, laying aside Quick's troubling past criminal history. His leadership role for the union would seem as unlikely as Planned Parenthood choosing Eric Miller, a Christian activist and ardent foe of abortion, as its leader.
Critics believe Gov. Daniels' short-sighted pardon of Quick was due to the unlikely political support he has received from Quick, who admitted to taking part in a strong-armed robbery on July 13, 1978 near downtown Indianapolis on Indiana Avenue that resulted in the near-death shooting of a female victim. According to Indiana Parole Board records on Quick's pardon case, Quick and another man, Anthony Hawthorne, held up a woman at gunpoint while she waited outside in her car in a parking lot for her boyfriend to pick up food inside of King's Soul Food restaurant. One of the men hopped in the front passenger-side seat of her car while the other climbed into the back seat and ordered her at gun point to give them her money. The men grabbed her purse but found only $10. They then ordered her to drive off with them in the car, but she laid on the horn instead, alerting her boyfriend, who then rushed to her aid. The men ordered her boyfriend into the car at gunpoint, took $200 in cash from him and forced the woman to drive them down the street and turn into an alley. The woman's boyfriend grabbed one of the men's arms and struggled with him. During the struggle, the woman was shot in the chest and both ran down the alley.
According to the narrative in the parole board file, Quick and Hawthorne had not been implicated in the strong-armed robbery and shooting until two years later when Hawthorne was in police custody for suspicion of committing another crime and confessed to the armed robbery and shooting and told police of Quick's role. Hawthorne mistakenly believed the female victim had been killed in the shooting, but she actually survived the shooting. The parole board narrative indicated that Hawthorne and not Quick had pulled the trigger. Quick claimed he had fled the scene on foot before Hawthorne shot the woman. On February 26, 1981, then-Marion Co. Prosecutor Steve Goldsmith struck a plea deal with Quick under which he pleaded guilty to a Class C felony robbery charge and was sentenced to 2 years in prison with one year suspended from his sentence; the more serious charges against Quick for Class A felony robbery and Class B felony confinement were dropped. The actual facts of the shooting are difficult to ascertain because, as the parole board file indicated, the original police file had gone missing. The police involved in the investigation of the original arrest could not be identified, and the sentencing judge in the case had since died. While Department of Correction records confirm Quick served one year in prison for the crime, there are no records on the Department's online criminal offender database of Hawthorne's conviction and sentence, even though he was the one who supposedly confessed to the shooting.
A 1995 interview of Quick in Nuvo, Indianapolis' weekly alternative newspaper, concerning the 1978 armed robbery conviction quotes him as saying, "That stuff there was in the '70s . . . I'm moving forward and I feel good about myself." Nuvo's 1995 story on Quick focused on his role as a leader in the local AFSCME union and his public support of Mayor Goldsmith. The alternative newspaper found it a bid odd to find a man Goldsmith had put away in his role as prosecutor years earlier for a serious crime on the city payroll in a top union position publicly supporting his privatization initiatives and participating as an enthusiastic supporter in his re-election campaign. After being released from prison, Quick worked a few years for Wilhelm Construction before becoming a truck driver for the City's Department of Public Works while Bill Hudnut was still mayor. Quick continued to work for the department during Goldsmith's eight years as mayor and thereafter. He currently works part-time as an electrician for the department paid $20,000 a year according to 2008 salary information posted online, while devoting the balance of his time to his duties as union president.
As it turns out, the 1978 strong-armed robbery was not the only time Quick had been in trouble with the law. One year prior to Quick's arrest in the Indiana Avenue armed robbery shooting, Quick and his brother Gregory were indicted in 1979 for murder. The two men were accused of shooting and killing a man while he sat in his car in a liquor store parking lot. The charges were later dismissed due to a problem with the evidence. According to DOC records, Quick's brother Gregory was later convicted and sentenced for dealing cocaine on May 8, 1991, Goldsmith's last year as Marion Co. prosecutor, a Class B felony, according to DOC records. A 2007 story by Fred Ramos for Nuvo revisited Quick's criminal past and first questioned the pardon Daniels gave to him for the armed robbery case, raising the issue of the 1979 murder charge against Quick:
In 1979, Marion County Prosecutor Steve Goldsmith filed murder charges against Quick. (Yes, the same Steve Goldsmith that would later became mayor of Indianapolis. Guess who would later become leader of Marion County’s public employee union? That’s right, Steve Quick).
Documents report Quick and his brother, Gregory, was indicted after a man was shot in the chest. The victim was sitting alone in his car at a liquor store parking lot when he was shot. The man died. But Deputy Prosecutor, Robert Thompson dismissed the charges.
In a published report, years after the murder charge against Quick was dismissed, Thompson (who returned to private practice) said, he felt he had “insufficient evidence for a conviction.” He added, “There is no statute of limitation on murder. We hoped for a stronger case later on.”
The Indiana Torch spoke with Thompson recently and asked if Daniel’s office had contacted him concerning Quick, the pardon and the murder case. “No one from the governor’s office has contacted me concerning Steve Quick,” said Thompson.
When I reviewed the parole board file on Quick's pardon, I found nothing in it pertaining to the 1979 murder charge against Quick. I questioned Parole Board Vice-Chairman Randy Gentry, who participated in the unanimous recommendation of Quick's pardon to the governor about the absence of any mention of the murder charge in Quick's pardon file. Gentry said it was irrelevant to the board's consideration of Quick's pardon because the charges had been dismissed. The parole board seemed unconcerned that the case had remained unsolved. When Gov. Daniels approved Quick's pardon, a spokesperson for the governor told Ramos that he had no knowledge of the murder charge when he signed off on the pardon:
When asked if Gov. Daniels was aware of Quick’s murder charge before pardoning him for the 1980 shooting. “No, he did not,” said Jankowski. “Gov. Daniels reviewed a unanimous recommendation from the parole board that was in favor of the petition.
Jankowski said the parole board considered Quick’s petition for parole, “This might be the strongest case for granting a pardon, the board has reviewed.”
The Torch asked if Gov. Daniels would have granted the pardon if he’d known about Quick’s murder charge.
“I’m not going to take a hypothetical like that to him,” said Jankowski. “He doesn’t have anything more to say about it.”
As the prosecutor in the murder case noted to Ramos, the statute of limitatations never runs for the crime of murder. Just this week Marion Co. Prosecutor Terry Curry brought murder charges against a man who had earlier been charged in the 1986 slaying of 13-year-old Dawn Stuard but had the charges against him later dropped due to evidentiary problems. Curry charged Paul Reese, Sr. after police recently tied DNA evidence found in Reese's basement to the victim. Marion County currently has about 800 cold murder cases according to a story in the Star this past week following the announcement murder charges had been brought against Reese.
In support of his pardon request, Quick stated, "I have proven that I have turned my life around and I have served my community." Quick hinted at a desire to someday run for political office. "I would like the opportunity to possibly run for office and continue to serve my community by giving back," he wrote. His petition noted he was married and had three children. He touted his work with the Front Porch Alliance and a violence reduction program. The pardon file noted he owned a home on Indianapolis' northwest side valued at $180,000 and four other properties, as well as Quick Realty.
While the police officer in charge of the unit that investigated burglaries and larceny at the time of Quick's arrest and the prosecutor who handled his case declined to offer a recommendation to the parole board, he had no shortage of heavy hitters backing his plea for a pardon. Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi described Quick as a "poster child" for someone who had turned their life around. Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams, who himself won a presidential pardon from President George W. Bush for a federal theft conviction from his days working for the U.S. Postal Service so he could be a candidate for the Indianapolis school board, sang Quick's praises. House Speaker Brian Bosma described Quick as "a trustworthy and honorable person" he had known for years. Gov. Daniels' controversial former Lottery Director Esther Schneider said Quick and his wife were close friends who frequently dined with her and her husband and were often guests in each other's homes. Former Indiana State Republican Chairman Murray Clark supported Quick's pardon, as did the party's former executive director and State Representative Luke Messer. Messer said Quick had "played a major role in Indiana politics" and had "worked on a number of campaigns."
Noticeably missing from those supporting Quick's pardon was former Mayor Steve Goldsmith. Quick did, however, include a scrapbook filled with old newspaper stories, letters and e-mail exchanges from the Goldsmith years, including personal notes of thanks from Goldsmith and other high level members of his administration thanking Quick for his support of the administration's privatization initiatives. Because Goldsmith was prosecutor at the time of Quick's conviction, it would have seemed logical that he would have weighed in on the pardon request as opposed to the current prosecutor Carl Brizzi, who knew little about Quick's past. Quick's scrapbook included a personal note from Daniels thanking Quick for supporting his campaign for governor when he first ran in 2004 and joining him on the campaign trail to lend his support.
Quick standing to the left behind Ballard at his campaign re-election kickoff
My interest in the Quick pardon piqued after I observed photos of him standing directly behind Mayor Greg Ballard at his campaign re-election announcement last month at the Indiana War Memorial. I recalled the public role Quick had played as AFSCME president in the ouster of former Animal Care & Control Director Doug Rae. In an e-mail exchange with Ray last month he told me about his interaction with Quick. Rae, who relocated to Indianapolis from Philadelphia to take the job running IACC, told me, "I couldn't get away from your dysfunctional city and the political corruption fast enough once I knew I was done." Rae and the former chairman of the advisory board overseeing IACC, Warren Patitz, both told many of the problems at the agency related to the inordinate control the employees of Quick's union exercised over the agency's operations. Rae complained that the Mayor's office, Department of Public Safety, City Legal and Human Resources were all about "bowing" to the union's "every wish."
Rae was brought aboard IACC in an effort to clean up the troubled agency by Public Safety Director Scott Newman after former Indianapolis City-County Council President Steve Tally was forced out for poor management issues. Once Newman abruptly stepped down as Public Safety Director, Rae's support from the Ballard administration evaporated. When Rae attempted to correct staffing probems at the agency, Quick immediately began meddling. According to Rae, Quick verbally assaulted him in front of his employees and repeatedly reminded him he had direct access to the Mayor's office whenever he wanted it. Rae described Quick's people skills as "the very worst" and the "poster boy" for why public unions are "ineffective." Quick prodded the employees to resist any changes he attempted to make and use up 100% of their eligible time off by calling in sick, requesting light duty work or taking FMLA leave. To Rae, Quick was a "bully" in need of being "put in his place." "There was no compromise with Quick," Rae said. "It was his life or he would make my life a living hell." Whenever the issue turned on Quick's actions, Rae said he would "play the race card."
Public Safety Director Frank Straub (center) shown with Quick
Rae had no awareness of Quick's criminal past when he worked at IACC, but he had been warned by IACC employees of what he was capable of doing. Rae also endured threats and vandalism during his short tenure at IACC. He received anonymous notes warning him to leave town. His automobile was vandalized by someone while parked at his home. His car's windshield was busted and dog food scattered over the hood.
I think critics have a valid point in criticizing Daniels' pardon of Quick. It's hard to put your finger on one single person in his administration responsible for his decision to pardon Quick. A former Goldsmith administration official who knew Quick quite well is Mitch Roob. Roob, of course, was responsible for the FSSA welfare privatization debacle that harmed many state employees, those dependent on welfare services and cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars during his tenure running that agency. Roob has also been at the center of the inflated job creation numbers controversy as the head of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Roob, however, was not among those urging Daniels to pardon Quick--at least according to the public file. The parole board made up of his appointees certainly let him down. And his own counsel in the governor's office at the time, Mark Massa, didn't catch any problems with the pardon. The initial rushed pardon for Quick had to be redone after the governor's office mistakenly worded the pardon incorrectly by naming another criminal offender with the name "Stephen Quick" instead of "Steven Quick." Ultimately, the buck stops at the governor's desk whose signature appears on the pardon.
Ramos' point in his earlier reporting is hard to dismiss out of hand. Daniels' spokesperson, Jane Jankowski suggested to Ramos that Quick's petition was perhaps the "strongest case" for granting a pardon. The parole board's Vice-Chairman Randy Gentry told me that the board recommends pardons in a very small percentage of the petitions filed each year with only a small percentage of those cases ultimately gaining the governor's approval. As an attorney, I recognize that a person is innocent until proven guilty, but the facts of his conviction for the strong-armed robbery case in my opinion would never warrant the extraordinary grant of a gubernatorial pardon regardless of what he had done with his life after being released from prison. "Quick and the governor have a unique relationship," Ramos wrote in his 2007 story. "Daniels abruptly canceled contracts covering 25,000 state employees his first day on the job." "Then, Daniels pardons Quick." Ramos ended, "Apologies to my college Latin instructor: could this be a "Quick Pro Quo?" Match that with George Will's laudatory statements in his introduction of him at CPAC last week: "Daniels has practiced the lean government he preaches. Under him, Indiana has its fewest state employees since 1978, the nation's lowest state government employment per capital." In that regard, Daniels has been more successful than almost any other governor in the nation in avoiding calamitous budget deficits. At the same time, it makes you wonder how one of his number one fans could be the AFCME union's president. I doubt Gov. Daniels will have to worry about Quick helping organize public employees to stage demonstrations at the State House like those being waged against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker this past week.
The video below features an interview of Quick by Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams in which Quick praises Mayor Greg Ballard. Both Williams and Quick are convicted felons who received pardons for their past crimes. Williams was pardoned by President George W. Bush, while Quick received his pardon from Gov. Mitch Daniels. The video is a perfect example of how WCTY, the city-run public access channel, is blatantly used for political purposes.
Lugar looking on as Obama signs the START Treaty he supported
The American Standard's Kenneth Tomlinson picks up on a theme I spoke about earlier when I pondered if Sen. Richard Lugar's status as "Obama's Favorite Senator" would be reminiscent of the problem he faced in his unsuccessful 1974 race against Birch Bayh when he was dubbed "Richard Nixon's Favorite Mayor."
Back when he was running for president, Barack Obama cited his relationship with Senator Richard Lugar so often that Lugar came to be known in the political press as “Obama’s favorite Republican.” Photos of Lugar even appeared in campaign ads that helped Obama (narrowly) carry Indiana.
After the election, the relationship continued to bear fruit for the White House. Lugar was one of the first Republican senators to endorse the president’s choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Lugar was one of only five Senate Republicans to vote to confirm Elena Kagan.
And at the White House press conference called in December to celebrate Senate ratification of the START treaty, Obama explained, “I just got off the phone with Dick Lugar . . . and I told him how much I appreciated the work he had done.” . . . .
Ultimately, however, it may be the words of Barack Obama that will give Lugar the most trouble back home. It puzzles political observers that Lugar allowed himself to be placed in this predicament—though it does echo the problems he had 40 years back as mayor of Indianapolis when networks dubbed him Richard Nixon’s favorite mayor . . .
It could be that this history made Lugar vulnerable to Obama’s self-serving adoration. Indeed, if Lugar does stay in the 2012 Republican Senate primary, the list of disappointments may get a little longer.
Tomlinson's focus on the 2012 Senate primary race talks about announced and potential candidates State Treasurer Richard Mourdock and Sen. Mike Delph. Tomlinson even wonders if Mike Pence may be so buoyed by Lugar's vulnerability that he decides to take a shot at him, although the smart money is on Pence running for governor and waiting for a later shot at running for president. Tomlinson also says there is some speculation Lugar will ultimately bow out of the race when he sees the breadth of Republican party leadership lining up behind Mourdock at his scheduled announcement next Tuesday. "In Washington, there are those who insist the prideful Lugar in the end will call it quits rather than face GOP opposition back home," Tomlinson writes. Perhaps a bit surprising, Tomlinson cites sources close to Gov. Mitch Daniels as indicating he will likely remain neutral in Lugar's primary, which is a bit surprising given Daniels got his start as a youngster working for then-Mayor Richard Lugar and later ad one of his Senate aides.
Realclearpolitics.com has a story you won't read in mainstream news media reports in Indiana about Sen. Richard Lugar that is sure to only bolster the arguments of his opponents that he has been in Washington too long. Erin McPike confirms in her report that Lugar stays in a hotel during his return visits to the Hoosier state.
Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar has been preparing for an intra-party challenge since he was first elected, but recently, questions have popped up about his residency and commitment to Indiana.
Asked if Lugar lived in a hotel when he returned to Indiana, Lugar senior adviser Mark Helmke said, "That's correct."
Lugar owns a farm in the Hoosier State that he's been tending for decades. His siblings own parts of the farm, but he still works on it once a month with his son, even though he doesn't live there.
As for the living conditions on the farm, Helmke joked, "The place is pretty rustic."
Asked how Lugar's team would respond if challenged about his residency, Helmke shot back, "We'll be happy to talk about the farm."
"It's not an issue. They can try to make it an issue. We'll be happy to talk about the farm and what it means to him," Helmke said.
Lugar is awaiting a tough primary challenge from state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, but he has been dogged in defense of his record. In fact, he told the tea party to "get real" earlier this year.
While the tea party might be looking to take down Lugar, those close to Mourdock are more concerned with Lugar's more recent past as a Beltway insider, and Mourdock claims to be a little bit outside the tea party mantle.
The six-term senator and his wife maintain their year-round residence in suburban Alexandia, Virginia, a short distance from the nation's capital.
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR INVESTIGATING OTHER MATTERS
Secretary of State Charlie White, while facing a third day of grand jury proceedings looking into charges leveled by Hamilton County Democrats that he committed voter fraud, got into a scuffle with a Democratic Republican attorney at the courthouse Hamilton Co. judicial center. The Star's Robert Annis provides few details of the incident involving attorney Tim Stoesz other than a sheriff's comment that no criminal charges would be filed:
Hamilton County authorities investigated an altercation involving Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White on Thursday at the courthouse where a grand jury is looking into vote-fraud allegations against him.
A Sheriff's Department spokeswoman said Thursday that no charges would be filed in connection with the incident, which involved White and Westfield attorney Tim Stoesz. Stoesz has clashed with White, the former Hamilton County Republican chairman, over political matters in the past.
A Sheriff's Department report described the incident as a disturbance on the second floor of the Hamilton County Judicial Center and said it was determined that "no criminal activity took place.'' Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Vicki Dunbar said Thursday that no charges would be filed.
The special prosecutor heading up the proceedings previously indicated the grand jury proceedings could last up to two weeks in what would seem to be a rather straightforward and simple case. Advance Indiana has learned that a video of the incident exists and will become public eventually. According to a source, Stoelsz was questioned in an ongong investigation of White by Indiana State Police two months ago. The special prosecutor is apparently looking into matters that extend beyond the voter fraud allegations against him, which may help explain the additional time needed to wrap up his work more quickly, as well as the unavailability of some witnesses. A source says Gov. Mitch Daniels has asked White privately to resign the office but he declined. There's sure to be more on this story in the coming days and weeks.
UPDATE: WRTV has obtained the video of the altercation, which you can view here. You will see in the video that White's father was attempting to prevent Stoesz from taking a picture of Charlie, while Charlie appeals to a deputy from the second floor balcony overlooking the security point entrance to the judicial center to force Stoesz to leave. White's father got up in Stoesz' face with his hand before a deputy arrived and escorted Stoesz away without further incident. White's father demanded Stoesz identify himself, and he did.
As an attorney by profession, it pains me to say this, but my review of the complaint the bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance filed against the affiliated companies owned and controlled by Ponzi scheme operator Tim Durham to recover a small part of the more than $200 million lost by small Ohio investors in the company leads me to the conclusion that you should listen more to your accountants and not your attorneys, at least in this case. Reacting to the 49-page complaint Trustee Brian Bash filed against Durham's Obsidian Enterprises and Diamond Investments, Durham's attorney is claiming Bash got it all wrong in suggesting Durham looted the company and used the money the Ohio investors loaned to it no differently than your classic Ponzi scheme. The Akron Beacon-Journal's Jim Mackinnon shares the reaction of the Ponzi scheme operator's attorney:
''I think at the end of the day we'll demonstrate the trustee was wrong,'' said Dennis Concilla, lawyer with Columbus firm Carlile Patchen & Murphy, which represents Durham, Cochran, Obsidian Enterprises and DC Investments.
Concilla said he expects to file a formal answer to the lawsuit in 20 to 30 days.
It is ''disingenuous'' of the trustee to say Durham and Cochran took Fair Finance money for personal use, he said. Because Fair Finance was a private company and not publicly traded, ''they were entitled to use that money,'' he said.
''We also believe categorically it was not a Ponzi scheme. It was real investments made in real companies,'' Concilla said.
Concilla has obviously not taken a very close look at what Durham's accountants told him nearly six years ago about their concerns Fair Finance was beginning to look too much like a Ponzi scheme. An April 5, 2005 letter to Durham and his business partner, Jim Cochran, the accountng firm of BGPC went to great pains to explain to the men why their accounting firm would not certify the financial reports for the company for 2003 or thereafter. "We believe the Company is at a crucial stage and continuing actions need to be taken to address the financial and other risks outstanding to protect FHI and Subsidiary as a long-term operating entity."
Concilla's suggestion that because Fair Finance was a private company, Durham and Cochran could use the company's money as they pleased, even if for personal use, defies common sense. If there were no safeguards under the applicable Ohio laws under which these debt offerings were being made available to Ohio investors under an intrastate exemption from security registration requirements, then why were their debt offerings even subject to approval of Ohio regulators? BGPC acknowledged in its letter that Durham had obtained an opinion letter from Indianapolis attorneys at Riley Bennett & Egloff for its exemption to issue the debt offering to investors in Ohio, but it urged the two men to seek further opinion of counsel on "compliance with other facets of Ohio securities law or, at a minimum, consult with counsel as to whether there may be areas of the law that could create a potential issue based on the lending practices at FHI and the significant lending to related parties."
First and foremost among BGPC's concerns was the significant loans Fair had made to the related companies controlled by Durham, and the fact that most of those companies had a negative cash position. More troubling to the accountants were the reckless manner in which these loans were approved and managed. Fair recognized interest income on all of its loans regardless of whether any interest was being paid on them and without maintaining loss reserves for bad loans. The company in fact had no policy for placing a loan on a non accrual basis because of the deteriorating business condition of the borrower evidenced by no payments within terms and collateral-dependent loans. The company had no policy for monitoring the credit status of any of its borrowers. The large related loans made to Obsidian, in particular, raised serious concerns to the accountants because of its negative operating results and its going concern issues. [W]ithout the support of FHI, the Obsidian group may not have been able to continue in its current form," BGPC suggested.
The related-party loans were too challenging from an accounting and documentation standpoint for BGPC. By definition, these were "not arm's length transactions and should not be presumed to be representative of a transaction that would be entered into by unrelated third parties." BGPC observed these loans often required no payment until maturity, frequent changes in loan terms, insufficient or nonstandard collateral and no monitoring--all "strong indicators of transactions that are not at arm's length." BGPC pointed out that loan guarantees for Obsidian's debts were made by Durham and Cochran, who also provided significant personal assets as collateral to Fair. "Should the guarantees on the Obsidian debt be acted on by the lenders, the collateral to FHI would be at risk."
Laying all of that aside, Concilla apparently never learned anything about fiduciary duty in law school. This point did not go missing on accountants at BGPC. "The Board of Directors of FHI should question whether there is a fiduciary responsibility of the owners, officers and directors of [Fair] to the holders of [Fair's] subordinated investment certificates," BGPC pondered. "We are not in a position to render an opinion on this matter, but consider it to be a relevant question based on the lack of controls in place, nature and materiality of related-party lending practices, and potential for material impact to the Company should this matter apply." "Accordingly, we strongly encourage to engage outside counsel competent in these matters to provide a legal opinion regarding such items," a pointed reference suggesting the accountants strongly believed Fair was not receiving competent legal advice.
To be fair, communications between other accountants and attorneys questioned the professional services of other professionals according to exhibits attached to the trustees complaint. The accounting firm of BDO was highly critical of Somerset for taking on Durham's Obsidian as a client. An accountant for BDO wrote in an e-mail to another colleague after seeing a Form 8-K prepared by Somerset for Obsidian, "We were doing the audit of a related party (Fair Finance) that at first was clean. Then it became a problem and we resigned." "Somerset took that one also." "These companies have serious issues." "Somerset just issued a clean opinion on Fair." "There is no way that should have been clean." He added, "If Somerset brings any of this to BDO you will not want any part of it."
While the law firm of Riley Bennett & Egloff earlier (in 2005) may have been comfortable that Fair Finance's offerings qualified for the intrastate exemption from securities registration, another attorney in Ohio's view on the exemption's safe harbor evolved as the business practices of Fair changed dramatically under Durham's ownership of the company. The SEC, according to Ronald Kaffen of Hardesty, Kaffen & Zimmerman, supported the exemption for Fair's traditional business because the company physically retained its collateral in Ohio and at least 80% of its dealings involved the purchase and collection of receivables occurring in Ohio. In a letter written a little more than a year before the FBI raided Fair's offices, Kaffen wrote in an e-mail to Durham that he originally thought the loans made to Fair Holdings, also an Ohio company, were for the purpose of entering other markets different from its core business of purchasing and collecting receivables. Kaffen didn't realize Fair intended to supplant nearly all of its core business with these new markets. Eventually, the company had jettisoned most of its receivable business and primarily needed to issue new investment certificates simply to retire maturing debt obligations. Kaffen characterized the new way of doing business as nothing more than a "pyramid scheme."
What funds raised from certificates to retire maturing certificates was overwhelmingly being used to provide loans to related companies outside of Ohio Kaffen observed. "If this is truly the purpose of more than 20% of the offering, the exemption is no longer available," Kaffen opined. Kaffen worried that the economy was headed into a sustained recession and the ability to renew outstanding certificates would put financial pressure on the company. In the event the company was forced to restrict payouts at maturity, Kaffen worried about investors filing lawsuits against the company. The plaintiffs would argue Fair had issued unregistered securities Kaffen stated. "If the argument is successful, there will be personal liability for all of the directors and executive officers of the company." He added, "Of course, my firm would also be joined and I would be faced with the same liability." Kaffen told Durham he did not claim knowledge of his "overall business strategies and the interrelation of Fair with your other holding." "All that I know is that Fair cannot obtain an audited financial statement due to the interlocking ownership of other businesses."
Durham's reply e-mail to Kaffen's lengthy discussion was very telling. "There are many ways to interpret this." I have always looked at it this way." "Every month we issue new certs and retire old certs." "The excess is really what you are talking about." "But in reality, 90% of all new sales retires old certs and interest thereon." "I have always viewed it that way. Otherwise almost all of our receivables are generated out of state and always have been." If Durham would listen to himself talk, he would understand he is describing a business that operates like a classic Ponzi scheme. When Kaffen restated his concerns in a second lengthy e-mail, Durham's response was, "I am not sure I agree with your logic but I also thought we restructured everything to make sure we comply."
Tens of thousands of school teachers shut down schools in Wisconsin today and descended in mass at the State House in Madison over legislative efforts of the Governor Scott Walker (R) and Republican legislators to break the stranglehold teachers hold over public education and force them to contribute a greater share of their pension and other benefits to make their pay and benefits more in line with what average working Americans receive in a desparate effort to close a multi-billion dollar state budget deficit. It turns out these Cairo-style demonstrations by public workers is being staged by our committed socialist President Barack Obama. Now the President is preparing to unleash his socialist followers right here in Indiana and neighboring Ohio. From the Huffington Post:
Building on the momentum in Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of protesters have turned out to oppose Republican Gov. Scott Walker's effort to strip collective-bargaining rights from the state's public-employee unions, President Barack Obama's campaign organization is mobilizing its followers in Ohio and Indiana, where similar measures are being considered.
Thousands descended upon the Ohio statehouse Thursday to protest a bill that would eliminate collective-bargaining rights for state employees and curtail the rights of local-level government employees. The debate is similar to that in Wisconsin: Supporters say it's necessary to deal with budget problems, while opponents say it's nothing but a vicious assault on unions.
Now folded into the Democratic National Committee, Obama's campaign group Organizing For America is already actively engaged in Wisconsin and is beginning to ramp up organizing efforts in Ohio, though observers say the latter process is about a week behind that in Wisconsin. The group is also beginning to dig into Indiana, whose legislature is considering a bill to limit collective bargaining by teachers.
A DNC staffer told The Huffington Post that the group upped its efforts in Wisconsin after Chairman Tim Kaine spoke with local legislators last week. OFA then began organizing turnout for Thursday's statehouse rally and running phone banks in Ohio targeting state senators, which are slated to continue next week. This weekend, organizers have set up door-to-door canvassing in key districts that they hope will likewise put pressure on swing lawmakers.
OFA National Deputy Director Jeremy Bird said volunteers first alerted the group to the contested Ohio legislation. "The energy is pretty remarkable," he told The Huffington Post. "People started to contact us, and they'd call our office and our volunteers, and say, 'This is a big deal. This is going to affect my family.' ... That started to really simmer earlier this week in Ohio, and it's starting to pick up the pace."
In Ohio, major labor unions including AFSCME and the AFL-CIO are also stepping up the pressure against Gov. John Kasich (R) and the bill's supporters. The AFL-CIO estimated that tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and handwritten postcards have been delivered to state senators in opposition to the legislation, and a spokesman said the protests will continue in the coming weeks.
"One of the things we're trying to do is reach out more to the general public, especially through media, but also through a lot of this phone-calling and door-to-door efforts," Andy Richards, the field communications director for the AFL-CIO in Ohio, said in an interview with The Huffington Post, noting that the protests have helped re-energize a base frustrated by the November elections. "But I think having them as an ally with that, and being able to reach people we aren't necessarily reaching with our membership, is good."
OFA is also stepping up its online mobilization via Facebook and Twitter, as well as the work of its youth chapters at Ohio State University and other schools.
Indiana isn't yet seeing a similar level of progressive momentum, but OFA blasted out an email Thursday to its members regarding the pertinent legislation.
In an interview with Wisconsin's local WTMJ-TV, Obama condemned Gov. Walker's proposal. "Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama said. "And I think it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our neighbors, they're our friends."
Make no mistake about it. This President and his supporters are doubling down on their efforts to bring the United States of America to total financial ruin and serve us up to their masters who support the socialist agenda of the New World Order. They want you to believe we can continue to borrow and spend our way into prosperity. That there is no Red Menace as Gov. Mitch Daniels aptly described it in reference to our increasingly insurmountable government debt. They would rather risk ending our sovereignty by forcing us to dissolve our national borders and scrap our Constitution. To do this, they must ensure we are entirely beholden as debtors to foreign creditors who oppose our very way of life in America. Americans in the private sector are making financial sacrifices like never before, but these government workers would rather enslave private sector workers to maintain their economic standards than share in the sacrifice. If you want to save America from the control of a totalitarian government, you must be prepared to stand up and fight for your rights. After all, what freedom will you have once you've entirely lost your economic freedom and have to turn to Big Brother government for everything you need to survive?
CBS News wanted Americans to think so highly of the protesters who took to the streets to demand the ouster of long-time American ally and supporter of peace initiatives in the Middle East Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that they were willing to ignore the brutal gang rape of their own correspondent by Muslim protesters who mistakenly thought she was Jewish. The Boston Herald's Michael Graham calls out the left-leaning news organization:
“[60 Minutes] correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, ‘Jew! Jew!’ as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday.”
Powerful reporting on an important story. Two problems: It didn’t run until yesterday, and CBS didn’t run it. The quote is from the New York Post. And it was The Wall Street Journal that reported “the separation and assault lasted roughly 20 to 30 minutes.”
But CBS? They sat on their own story. For five days, as reporters reveled amid giddy celebrations in Tahrir Square, and as President Obama praised President Obama’s handling of the Egyptian crisis, CBS reported nothing.
Only when other media had the story did CBS break the news that its own chief foreign correspondent was the victim of “a brutal and sustained sexual assault.”
Five days of silence — not even “60 Minutes” coverage of the Egypt story. No mention of the “mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy” who attacked their own reporter.
How is that not news?
Some women journalists, like WGBH’s Callie Crossley, complain that CBS should never have reported the story, that Logan should be treated like a rape victim in the United States. But I’m with liberal columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post:
“The sexual assault of a woman in the middle of a public square is a story . . . particularly because the crowd in Tahrir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy,” Cohen wrote.
Watching the same complicit media we all saw, Cohen notes most journalists covered the mobs “as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat.”
Even CBS’s own statement said Logan was “covering the jubilation” and was attacked “amidst the celebration.”
Having 200 “good guys” gang assault a female reporter while screaming “Jew! Jew!” doesn’t fit the narrative. Is that why CBS sat on the story?
Or is it the cultural issue? A rape in a bar is a sex crime. But a pack of political protesters who rape a “Jew” in public is a story about culture.
Rapes happen everywhere, it’s true. And political protests are a global phenomenon, too. But as Slate.com’s Rachel Larimore says, “there’s a huge difference between flipping over a truck and spraying friends with beer and prying a woman away from her security detail and sexually assaulting her.”
Larimore wonders if “Logan’s attack [is] an anomaly, or is it to be expected from men raised in a culture that treats women as lesser citizens?”
For some reason I doubt the media coverage of an incident of this nature would have been quite so absent or passive if the perpetrators had been, oh let's say, Tea Party protestors or right wing Christians, as opposed to members of the religion of peace.
Exhibits attached to the 49-page complaint the bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance has filed against affiliated companies owned and controlled by Tim Durham in an effort to recoup some of the more than $200 million out of which the Indianapolis businessman defrauded small investors in Ohio gives us a bird's eye view into the life of a Ponzi scheme operator.
A little more than a year before the FBI raided the offices of Fair Finance and Obsidian Enterprises, Durham and his business partner Jim Cochran had an e-mail exchange in which Cochran was making the case that he should be pulling down compensation of $1 million a year to help pay for all of his homes. Durham responds, "[Y]ou get 8475 a week and I borrow and repay continuously against assets on my line of credit which is collateralized . . so my cash flow is really debt flows in and out . . . the problem is . . . the flows don't match." "The problem you have now is I am guessing that your assets don't cover your loans from Fair . . . so if we ever get audited by the state, I would suppose your collateralization may be way short. Durham then asks Cochran what he is trying to do with an increase in compensation. "If it is mortgage payment problems, then maybe we have DCI buy your excess homes and make those payments. Just thinking about different strategies."
Cochran had explained in the e-mail exchange with Durham that his loans "aren't much compared to what has happened in the past and outstanding loans to outsiders." To be clear, a loan to an "outsider" to Cochran is a loan to an insider to you and me. Cochran was lamenting his loans on three separate homes, including $1 million for a home in Naples, Florida, $700,000 for his Indianapolis home and $39,000 for a home in Bonita Springs, Florida. About a year later shortly before the FBI raided their offices, Cochran complains how the cost of an extra house payment has finally caught up with him. "The extra house payment has finally caught up with me," Cochran wrote to Durham. "I have to clear a bank checking account overdraft of $10,123 plus additional expense of $9,360.00 . . . I am leaving for Florida and checked with Bank . . . I cannot make my mortgage payments . . . I am going to need another wire." Durham doesn't want Cochran to sweat it. "I think we are getting a wire in and going to wire you today." He later tells Cochran, "We sold a trailer and got the funds in." He added in reference to the sale of new certificate of investments to the Ohio investors who were being duped, "Inv certs suck Friday. I hope this turns soon."
If not to add insult to injury on Cochran complaining about managing payments on three homes, he tells Durham in the midst of his cash flow problems about a new country club membership. "I cut a deal with Grey Oaks Country Club to pay the initiation fee of $175,000 over 4 years with no interest." "I have paid $132,000 and $43,000 . . . is due October 15, 2008." "This is full equity and I am assigning the full Equity Amount to FHI" (referring to the holding company for Fair Finance). How generous of him to assign the equity interest in his country club membership to Fair's holding company. Cochran adds, I am short for IRS check . . . going to need $22,000." Gotcha.
At times, Durham had to have his assistant plead with folks on the payroll to stop using the company's credit cards for personal expenses. In an e-mail to Michael Rypel, a public relations guy for the business, Durham's assistant Shannon Frantz admonished him not to "use the gold corp. amex for personal use." Frantz identified a number of charges the company planned to bill back to him, including travel expenses to Miami, Florida, such as airfare, hotel charges to the W Hotel in South Beach and the Rok Bar in Miami. According to the trustees' complaint, it was common for money to be used to pay for the top executives personal expenses, including mortgages, country club memberships, housekeepers, yard work for their private homes, etc. Cochran, for his part, received at least $10 million in insider loans from the company before it closed its doors according to the trustee. Every passing day that goes by that criminal charges are not filed against these people is a miscarriage of justice of a monumental proportion.
