{"id":4481,"date":"2009-04-20T18:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T00:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/embattled-obama-exec-rattner-gave-20k-to-guv\/"},"modified":"2009-04-20T18:29:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T00:29:00","slug":"embattled-obama-exec-rattner-gave-20k-to-guv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/04\/embattled-obama-exec-rattner-gave-20k-to-guv\/","title":{"rendered":"Embattled Obama Exec. Rattner gave $20K to guv"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Man tied to NY pension scandal gave big to Richardson\u2019s campaigns. Meanwhile, his company was doing business with the State Investment Council, which the governor heads.<\/span><\/p>\n

Steven Rattner<\/a>, the head of President Barack Obama\u2019s auto-bailout program and a man who has been linked to a New York pension scandal that has tentacles in New Mexico<\/a>, gave $5,000 to Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> 2002 gubernatorial campaign and $15,000 to Richardson\u2019s 2006 re-election bid.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to the money-in-politics Web site followthemoney.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richardson heads the State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC), which manages the state\u2019s investments. In October 2005, the SIC voted to invest $20 million with Quadrangle Group LLC<\/a>, according to minutes of the meeting<\/a>. At the time of the 2002 and 2006 campaign contributions, Rattner was a managing principle in the company, which he left in February of this year to take the auto-bailout job.<\/p>\n

Though he hasn\u2019t been charged with any wrongdoing, Rattner has been identified by national media outlets<\/a> as the unnamed person in federal documents who allegedly arranged in late 2004 for Quadrangle to pay $1.1 million in exchange for business with the state of New York. Hank Morris is under indictment in the New York case, accused of using his position in that state\u2019s comptroller\u2019s office to shake down companies wanting to do business with the state\u2019s pension fund, including Quadrangle.<\/p>\n

Morris is accused of taking 95 percent of the money from Quadrangle as a kickback. He denies the allegations.<\/p>\n

Morris, according to a document released today by the SIC<\/a>, was the third-party marketer who helped secure the New Mexico investment contract for Quadrangle in 2005. The document discloses all of the \u201cplacement agents\u201d that investment firms used to help win state contracts. The amount he was paid by Quadrangle for his work in New Mexico has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n

Spokesmen for the governor\u2019s office have not responded to a request for comment sent this afternoon via e-mail. A spokesman for the SIC declined to comment.<\/p>\n

More allegations of pay to play<\/span><\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t for the allegations against Morris in New York, this might be just another example of a Richardson donor who won a state contract. But the man in the middle is facing allegations that he took kickbacks in exchange for steering billions of dollars in New York retirement-fund investments to paying companies.<\/p>\n

State government in New Mexico has been plagued by pay-to-play allegations in recent years. And Richardson is currently dogged by such allegations in his own administration — which, in the federal grand jury investigation<\/a> and the separate lawsuit brought by Frank Foy<\/a>, have to do with state investments. The first, a criminal probe, is what tanked Richardson\u2019s nomination to be Obama\u2019s commerce secretary.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that Rattner and Quadrangle have not been accused of wrongdoing in New York or New Mexico, and Morris has been accused of no wrongdoing in New Mexico. Quadrangle is reportedly cooperating with investigators in the New York case.<\/p>\n

The SIC has taken two steps in response to the situation in New York. Last month, it requested from all investment firms that hold contracts with the SIC the disclosure of third-party marketers they used to help win state contracts. That information is contained in the document SIC released today.<\/p>\n

In addition, on Friday the SIC suspended a contract with financial adviser Aldus Equity<\/a> because of questions about its relationship with Morris<\/a> in the New York case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man tied to NY pension scandal gave big to Richardson\u2019s campaigns. Meanwhile, his company was doing business with the State Investment Council, which the governor heads. Steven Rattner, the head of President Barack Obama\u2019s auto-bailout program and a man who has been linked to a New York pension scandal that has tentacles in New Mexico, […]<\/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-4481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481","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=4481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}