{"id":4701,"date":"2009-07-01T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-01T20:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/correra-shared-in-half-of-identified-placement-fees\/"},"modified":"2009-07-01T14:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-01T20:06:00","slug":"correra-shared-in-half-of-identified-placement-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/07\/correra-shared-in-half-of-identified-placement-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Correra shared in half of identified placement fees"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

$22 million and counting.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how much the State Investment Council<\/a> (SIC) now says Marc Correra, the son of a friend of and fundraiser for Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>, shared in for helping investment companies win state contracts.<\/p>\n

The fees in which Correra shared amount to about half of all third-party marketer or \u201cplacement\u201d fees the SIC has been able to identify, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You read that right. Half. And the list isn\u2019t complete, so it\u2019s possible the total could grow.<\/p>\n

The new information was revealed on Tuesday when the SIC released an updated list<\/a> of third-party marketers who helped companies win state business. The SIC has been working to compile such a list as an nationwide investment scandal that began in New York has led to investigations in at least 30 other states, with New Mexico being among the most prominent.<\/p>\n

Most of the newly disclosed fees in which Correra shared came from Vanderbilt Capital, the firm at the center of a pay-to-play lawsuit brought by former Educational Retirement Board<\/a> (ERB) investment officer Frank Foy on behalf of the state.<\/p>\n

Foy\u2019s lawsuit originally alleged<\/a> that the state lost $90 million in investment deals with Vanderbilt Financial made in exchange for a little more than $15,000 in contributions to Richardson\u2019s 2008 presidential campaign. It has been expanded<\/a> to include a wide range of other pay-to-play allegations.<\/p>\n

Among the allegations in the lawsuit is that Correra \u201cis one of the main conspirators in the pay-to-play scheme that infected the SIC and the ERB\u201d and that, in addition to receiving the finder\u2019s fees, Correra \u201calso arranged or participated in kickbacks to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the newly released information, Correra shared in almost $6 million in fees paid by Vanderbilt. Correra\u2019s lawyers have said he did nothing illegal.<\/p>\n

Bland knew about Correra<\/span><\/p>\n

The Journal quoted SIC spokesman Charles Wollmann as saying the SIC staff \u201cwas completely unaware of any relationship between Correra and Vanderbilt or that he had played a third-party marketer role\u201d at the time of the investments. But State Investment Officer Gary Bland was quoted by the newspaper as saying he was aware of Correra\u2019s involvement, though he didn\u2019t know specifics.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s probably a good reason Bland knew about Correra. From the Journal:<\/p>\n

\u201cCorrera is the son of Anthony Correra, a Richardson political supporter and close friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe elder Correra was also involved in Bland\u2019s hiring<\/a> to the $300,000-a-year post as state investment officer. Anthony Correra at one point had office space in the State Investment Council and Bland has said he and Anthony Correra talked about markets almost daily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foy\u2019s lawsuit alleges that Anthony Correra is also one of the \u201cmain conspirators\u201d in the alleged pay-to-play scheme. Correra was a director of Richardson\u2019s now-defunct Moving America Forward Foundation<\/a>, which Foy has included in the alleged scheme.<\/p>\n

Bland is among those named as defendants in Foy\u2019s lawsuit. He and others have strongly denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

The situation in New Mexico comes as several related players have been indicted<\/a> in New York. In New Mexico, federal investigators have been asking questions about state investments and have subpoenaed records<\/a>. The SIC and ERB have banned the use of third-party marketers and taken other steps in response to the scandal, and the governor and Legislature have agreed to fund an independent review of the SIC\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$22 million and counting. That\u2019s how much the State Investment Council (SIC) now says Marc Correra, the son of a friend of and fundraiser for Gov. Bill Richardson, shared in for helping investment companies win state contracts. The fees in which Correra shared amount to about half of all third-party marketer or \u201cplacement\u201d fees the […]<\/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-4701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701","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=4701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}