{"id":4069,"date":"2008-12-15T10:55:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/grand-jury-probes-richardson-donors-state-contract\/"},"modified":"2008-12-15T10:55:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T16:55:00","slug":"grand-jury-probes-richardson-donors-state-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/12\/grand-jury-probes-richardson-donors-state-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand jury probes Richardson donor’s state contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This article has been updated.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office has convened a federal grand jury to investigate dealings between the state and a California company that was paid almost $1.5 million for work related to a contract it won around the same time it donated $100,000 to political action committees formed by Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The grand jury probe comes after months of investigation by the FBI<\/a>, whose agents, according to Bloomberg.com<\/a>, have asked \u201ccurrent and former officials\u201d from the New Mexico Finance Authority<\/a> if any staffers in the governor\u2019s office influenced the hiring of CDR Financial in 2004. The grand jury investigation was first reported on today by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re looking at everything related to CDR,\u201d William Sisneros, the finance agency\u2019s chief executive officer, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying about the FBI investigation. \u201cThey\u2019re just trying to evaluate all the relationships to see what CDR was doing for the money.\u201d <\/p>\n

The company won a contract related to the massive transportation-funding plan Richardson dubbed GRIP — or Governor Richardson\u2019s Investment Partnership<\/a> — in 2004. According to Bloomberg, \u201cCDR made $1.48 million advising the authority on interest-rate swaps and restructuring escrow funds for $1.6 billion of transportation bonds issued by the agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in 2003 and 2004, CDR Financial gave $75,000 to Richardson\u2019s political action committee Si Se Puede!, and the company\u2019s head, David Rubin, gave $25,000 to Moving America Forward, another Richardson PAC.<\/p>\n

Richardson formed Si Se Puede! to pay travel expenses for him and staffers who were attending the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which he chaired. Moving America Forward was a voter-registration group.<\/p>\n

No information released publicly has directly linked Richardson to the probe, but Richardson could face questions about the situation when he goes through a Senate confirmation hearing in late January or February. President-elect Barack Obama<\/a> has nominated Richardson to be his commerce secretary.<\/p>\n

Staffers from Obama\u2019s press office did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment on the Bloomberg article. Neither did two Richardson staffers. In the past, the Richardson administration hasn\u2019t commented on the probe beyond saying it\u2019s cooperating with federal investigators.<\/p>\n

CDR told Bloomberg it did nothing wrong in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo suggest that there\u2019s a pay for play element is just inaccurate,\u201d CDR\u2019s Allan Ripp was quoted by Bloomberg as saying. \u201cThere was no involvement by the governor. CDR knows for certain that they were selected on the basis of their track record.\u201d<\/p>\n

CDR has a history of scandal in other states that is detailed in the Bloomberg article, which you can read by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On member of the NMFA Board, Craig Reeves, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying he was asked by federal agents about whether the donations had any role in CDR\u2019s hiring. He said no one from the governor\u2019s office discussed hiring CDR with him.<\/p>\n

CDR was hired following the issuance of a Dec. 30, 2003 RFP. Six companies responded to the request, and CRD ranked second-highest. A committee recommended splitting the request into two parts and hired CDR for one. Rick Homans, who at the time was Richardson\u2019s economic development secretary, chaired that committee.<\/p>\n

Reached by e-mail today, Homans, who is now Richardson\u2019s taxation and revenue secretary<\/a>, declined to comment on the investigation.<\/p>\n

\n

Update, 11:35 p.m.<\/p>\n

\n

Richardson, asked today by the New Mexico Independent\u2019s<\/a> Trip Jennings about the federal investigation, refused to comment.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been updated. The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office has convened a federal grand jury to investigate dealings between the state and a California company that was paid almost $1.5 million for work related to a contract it won around the same time it donated $100,000 to political action committees formed by Gov. Bill Richardson. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}