Former Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
“To think that Anthony (Correra) and Marc (Correra) don’t have a stranglehold over this thing is crazy. Because the governor runs this sh*t and they run the governor.”
That’s what New Mexico’s investment adviser, Saul Meyer, said to his company’s partners in 2006 when talking about how things work in New Mexico. He was speaking about former Gov. Bill Richardson.
The quote came from an audio recording of the 2006 Aldus Equity meeting. A transcript and the audio recording have been filed in court by Frank Foy as part of his lawsuit alleging pay to play during the Richardson years.
Confused by all of this? The Albuquerque Journal ran an article on the Meyer recording this weekend that you can read here and summed up the various investment-related lawsuits here.
You can read the transcript of the Aldus Equity meeting here (It’s Tab A, which starts on page 6), and listen to it (in five parts) here, here, here, here and here. The files were provided by Foy’s attorney.
As for Meyer, he pleaded guilty in 2009 to felonies in New York related to an investment scandal there. In doing so, Meyer admitted to recommending “investments that were pushed on him by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico” while Aldus was the investment adviser to New Mexico’s State Investment Council and Educational Retirement Board.
And the Correras? From the Journal:
“Anthony Correra was a close political and economic adviser to Gov. Bill Richardson and helped select Gary Bland as State Investment Officer. Marc Correra shared in more than $22 million in finder’s fees paid by companies that received the state investments.”
Richardson, of course, is apparently under investigation by at least two federal grand juries. One is focused on the investment deals.