{"id":41244,"date":"2012-07-02T11:24:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T17:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=41244"},"modified":"2012-07-02T11:24:26","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T17:24:26","slug":"testimony-implicates-richardson-in-pay-to-play-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/07\/testimony-implicates-richardson-in-pay-to-play-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Testimony implicates Richardson in pay-to-play scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8142\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 293px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-8142 \" title=\"Richardson-4\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Richardson-41.jpg\" alt=\"Former Gov. Bill Richardson\" width=\"293\" height=\"247\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Richardson-41.jpg 325w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/Richardson-41-300x252.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Newly released testimony from an unrelated case implicates former Gov. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bill_Richardson\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Richardson<\/a> in pay to play in the awarding of a lucrative state contract to CDR Financial Products.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/news\/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620\" target=\"_blank\">Rolling Stone<\/a> was the first to report on the testimony from Doug Goldberg, a former CDR official, in an unrelated case. Then the Albuquerque Journal reported on it. From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abqjournal.com\/main\/2012\/06\/30\/news\/shedding-new-light-on-old-scandal.html\" target=\"_blank\">the Journal\u2019s article<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cA former official with CDR Financial Products, Douglas Goldberg, testified as a prosecution witness in April in a federal criminal antitrust case involving bid rigging in the municipal bond industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe antitrust case had no ties to New Mexico, but defense attorneys attempted to discredit Goldberg\u2019s testimony by examining his role in CDR getting a 2004 contract with the New Mexico Finance Authority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoldberg testified that he delivered a $25,000 political contribution to the governor at a fundraiser and that Richardson then said, \u2018Tell the big guy I\u2019m going to hire you guys.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoldberg said he understood \u2018big guy\u2019 to mean his direct boss, Stewart Wolmark, who Goldberg testified had given him the check.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRichardson\u2019s attorney, Peter Schoenburg, said Friday, \u2018Gov. Richardson denies any wrongdoing. The witness is not credible, the allegations are old and discredited, and the testimony is simply false.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As NMPolitics.net reported at the time, sometime in 2008 investigators began probing allegations that\u00a0CDR Financial Products received a state investment contract that paid almost $1.5 million in exchange for $110,000 in contributions to two Richardson political committees and his 2006 gubernatorial re-election campaign. CDR was paid to advise the NMFA on interest-rate swaps and restructuring escrow funds for $1.6 billion in bonds related to the transportation project dubbed GRIP, or\u00a0Governor Richardson\u2019s Investment Partnership.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation ended in 2009 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/report-guv-others-won%E2%80%99t-be-charged-in-gripgate-probe\/\" target=\"_blank\">without charges being filed<\/a>, but the U.S. attorney said at the time that Richardson and others investigated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/u-s-attorney-says-guv-others-arent-exonerated\/\" target=\"_blank\">should not consider themselves exonerated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newly released testimony from an unrelated case implicates former Gov. Bill Richardson in pay to play in the awarding of a lucrative state contract to CDR Financial Products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,142,122,107],"class_list":["post-41244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bill-richardson","tag-crime","tag-gripgate","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244","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=41244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}