{"id":4571,"date":"2009-05-14T21:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T03:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/u-s-attorney-subpoenas-investment-council-records\/"},"modified":"2009-05-14T21:07:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-15T03:07:00","slug":"u-s-attorney-subpoenas-investment-council-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/05\/u-s-attorney-subpoenas-investment-council-records\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. attorney subpoenas investment council records"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC) for documents related to its investment deals, Bloomberg<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just one of several news items in the last two days that indicates that the investment scandal that began in New York is spreading even further in New Mexico. In addition, a third-party marketer who did business in New Mexico has pleaded guilty to charges he faced in New York, and a company involved in the scandal has agreed to pay $20 million and reform its investment practices to avoid prosecution.<\/p>\n

But first the subpoena. SIC spokesman Charles Wollmann, speaking to Bloomberg, confirmed the subpoena from the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque but would not describe the contents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working to comply with the request of the authorities,\u201d Bloomberg quoted Wollmann as saying. \u201cWe\u2019ll be cooperating fully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as reported by the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, third-party marketer Julio Ramirez pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York this week. Like so many others in the New York scandal, he has connections to New Mexico. From the Journal:<\/p>\n

\u201cRamirez shared in $1.5 million in third-party fees paid in connection with the four New Mexico deals and, on at least two of them, shared the money with Marc Correra, a Santa Fe placement agent who is the son of a close friend and supporter of Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramirez pleaded guilty in New York to being involved in the taking of kickbacks by Henry \u2018Hank\u2019 Morris, the man at the center of the New York scandal, from companies that received state investment business. In some instances, according to the Journal, Ramirez was the middle man for those payments.<\/p>\n

Last, there\u2019s The Carlyle Group<\/a>, one of the largest equity funds in the nation, which, according to The Associated Press<\/a>, agreed today to pay the $20 million \u201cand make other reforms to resolve its role in an influence-peddling scandal at New York\u2019s public pension fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

What role was that? Well, the company, according to the news service, \u201cpaid $13 million to Morris for his help in influencing the fund, which ultimately invested more than $730 million dollars with the company.\u201d While the company has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of wrongdoing, it released a statement saying it has been \u201cvictimized by Hank Morris\u2019s alleged web of deceit,\u201d according to the AP. The company said it intends to sue Morris.<\/p>\n

Carlyle also agreed to ban employees from making campaign contributions to officials who have influence over state investments and said it would stop hiring politically connected third-party marketers.<\/p>\n

Now the New Mexico connection. From the AP:<\/p>\n

\u201cCarlyle paid Morris $150,000 for his help lobbying for a $20 million investment from New Mexico\u2019s state investment council.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you have the sense that this scandal isn\u2019t nearly done spreading, I think you\u2019re right. It already spans at least 30 states. Though New York is the only in which criminal charges have been filed, the state grabbing the most attention after New York is New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the State Investment Council (SIC) for documents related to its investment deals, Bloomberg is reporting. That\u2019s just one of several news items in the last two days that indicates that the investment scandal that began in New York is spreading even further in New Mexico. In addition, a third-party marketer who […]<\/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-4571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571","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=4571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}