Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Top Dem fund raiser charged with defrauding Citi

From Dow Jones

"A New York man was charged with allegedly defrauding Citigroup Inc. (C) out of $74 million in loans.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigations say Hassan Nemazee, with residences in Manhattan and Katonah, N.Y., fraudulently applied for the loans for Nemazee Capital Corp., of which he is chairman and chief executive.

Federal prosecutors contend Nemazee obtained the money by giving the banking giant "numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in Nemazee's name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars," the Justice Department said in a statement. "In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents."

From Wikipedia

"During the United States presidential election, 2004, Nemazee was a supporter of John Kerry and a major contributor to his campaign. He was the New York Finance Chair for the Kerry campaign, and is currently the national finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.[5] With Nemazee as the national finance chair, Chuck Schumer's DSCC in 2006 raised $115 million, outpacing the NRSC by substantial sums, and helping the Democratic Party take control of the Senate.[6] During his presidency, Bill Clinton nominated Nemazee to fill the position of U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.[7]

More recently, Nemazee served as Finance Chairman to Hillary Clinton's 2007-08 presidential campaign, and also donated $50,000 (the maximum amount) to Barack Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee.[8] In addition, Nemazee was a bundler for the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee."

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