Hevesi Rattner Mystery Donor

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/11/hevesi-rattner-mystery-donor

One of the loose threads of the Steven Rattner-Alan Hevesi case brought by the SEC today is the identity of the campaign donors identified in the following paragraph:

In late 2005 or early 2006, after the Retirement Fund had agreed to invest $100 million with Quadrangle, but before the firm had completed fundraising for Quadrangle Fund II, Morris contacted Rattner and pressed him for a financial contribution to Comptroller Hevesi's reelection campaign. Although Rattner purportedly had a personal policy that he would not make political contributions to politicians who have influence over public pension funds, Rattner agreed to find someone else to make the contribution. After speaking with Morris, Rattner asked a friend and the friend's wife to each contribute $25,000 to Hevesi's campaign, for a total contribution of $50,000. The day after these contributions were communicated to Hevesi's campaign staff, Hevesi telephoned Rattner and left him as message thanking him for the contribution. In late May 2006, Rattner's friend transmitted the promised campaign contributions to Rattner, who forwarded the two checks to Hevesi's campaign. Approximately one month later, Loglisci made a verbal commitment that the retirement fund would purchase an additional $50 million worth of limited partnership interests in Quadrangle Fund II. This commitment was memorialized on December 13, 2006.

New York State campaign finance records indicate that Los Angeles-based Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl Saban each gave $25,000 to Mr. Hevesi's campaign on May 24, 2006.

by Ira Stoll  |  Nov 18, 2010 at 12:49 pm Related Topics:  Campaign Finance, State-pension-fund capitalism receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list