Breaking News New York's Pay to Play Pension Scandal
The Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm that was once run by the Obama administration’s car czar, has agreed to settle a corruption investigation with New York State and the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Times reported.
HUGE: Quadrangle Settles Suit, But Specifically Slams Founder Steve Rattner The Business Insider* SEC files charges against Quadrangle GroupWashington Post
SEC Files Civil Charges Against Quadrangle In 'Pay-To-Play' Probe (WSJ) * Quadrangle sued in NY pay-to-pay probe Reuters * Quadrangle Group Sued Over Kickback 'Scheme' by SEC BusinessWeek * SEC Charges Private Equity Firm in Kickback Scheme Involving New York Pension Fund
True New March 14, 2010
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DiNapoli In Cuomo’s Crosshairs *DiNapoli Ensnared in Pension Fund Inquiry* The Wolf at Thompson's Door * True News: Wolf at Thompson Door, Part II . Avella Opens A Cut * DiNapoli: I’m Not Involved In Pension Mess
Next For Sure
Hevesi fallout widens to include Rattner, Global Strategy GroupQuadrangle Settles with Cuomo, Trashes Rattner; Global Fined Too
Global Strategies Group, whose CEO Jon Silvan will pay $2 million for serving unlicensed broker. Global, which did work for former Gov. Elliot Spitzer, is said to have received $1.3 million for helping facilitate pension fund investments in private equity funds managed by two firms.
Car Czar Steve Rattner Is All About "Chooch" - Chooch *
Steve Rattner, Obama's putative "car czar," was named in an SEC investigation claiming his investment firm funded distribution of a movie named "Chooch" in exchange for NY pension business. But what is "Chooch?
Pay to Play Liberal PartyFormer New York Liberal Party head Ray Harding charged with taking kickbacks in pension fund scheme
Consultants Who Use Their Influence to Join the Play to play Orgy Malpass To Gillibrand: Dump Global * Gov. David Paterson initially hired Risa Heller, who came to Global from Sen. Chuck Schumer’s shop, to run his communications operation after he ascended to replace Spitzer in March 2008, enabling the firm to maintain its toehold in Albany. But Global and Paterson parted ways in February 2009. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is now one of Global’s marquis clients. UPDATE: Oh yes, and Global has also worked for…Andrew Cuomo (during the 2006 AG’s race) * Malpass Slams Gillibrand On Global Ties
* Lobbyist Was Paid for Pension Fund Deals, Cuomo Says * DiNapoli Meeting Under Investigation By AG's Office * Gillibrand won't cut ties with Global Strategy despite AG report * Gillibrand, Rice Stick With Global Liu Wants to Keep Money Manages
The manager of New York City's $98 billion pension fund, City Comptroller John Liu, says he wants to revoke a ban on middlemen who arrange private equity deals * Bringing Back the Fixers (NYT Ed)
Quadrangle Settles With Cuomo and S.E.C.Statement by Quadrangle Leaves Steve Rattner Hanging
“We wholly disavow the conduct engaged in by Steve Rattner, who hired the New York State Comptroller’s political consultant, Hank Morris, to arrange an investment from the New York State Common Retirement Fund. That conduct was inappropriate, wrong, and unethical. We embrace the reforms in the Attorney General’s Code of Conduct, including the campaign contribution and placement agent ban, which are vitally necessary to eliminate pay-to-play practices from the public pension fund investment process. We urge others in the industry to follow.” * Quadrangle's Anti-Love Letter To Steve Rattner (WSJ) * Muck tracker - Quadrangle Group settles pension fund cases
What True News has written about Steve Rattner during the past years Steve Ratner Pension MessWho's Afraid of Steve Rattner? Everyone? * bloomberg pensionMess * The Wolf at Thompson's Door * True News: Wolf at Thompson Door, Part II . Avella Opens A Cut * DiNapoli * pension pay to play * The Hevesi Team is on the Pay to Play Varsity Division * Investors and Developers Control Comptroller's Campaign * Organized Crime Politics: Comptroller Office for Sale $$$
* Rattner: Toxic Conflict of Interest; Is the NYT at Risk? * Mayor Won't Forsake RattnerCity Council Horses Over People
Demands Health Care for Horses Same Week Fails to Help A Hospital From Closing
A horse has to meet a doctor but not the people?
The City Council has gone over the line. It passed a bill yesterday to demand carriage houses see a veterinarian twice a year while allowing a major city hospital to close St. Vincent’s Files for Bankruptcy Giving each horse five weeks off a year for some R&R outside the city may be needed but what about the thousands of New Yorkers who depended on St. Vincent to stay health. Yes the Council Speaker Quinn and the other yahoo pols appear at rallies to demand the hospital stay open, but their job after we elected them is to keep he hospital open. Now not only will St. Vincent patients suffer and die trying to locate new health care facilities , the other patients at other Manhattan hospitals will also suffer as they wait longer to see a doctor, because patients in the closed hospital will seek their hospital hospital to be treated in. Neigh-cation for carriage horses * NYC Carriage Horses to Get Vacation
More - We Don't Care Government
Cover Your Ass Today, Who Cares What Happens After I leave
Gov: Early retirement worth it in short run Paterson shrugged off the long-term costs of allowing some state employees to draw pension checks early. "It would have an effect long-term on the pension fund, but we're day-to-day here," Paterson told reporters * The budget is late, and senators are bickering. Then everybody headed home. (TU/GNS/AP)
Pay to Play Albany Retiring Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza used her public office to boost her private elder law practice.
UFT Defeats Charters
NY1 Exclusive: N.Y. May Forgo Second Round Of "Race To The Top" Competition
Mayor Spins Costs to Close the Fire Boxes Fire boxes cost taxpayers $877,952 in overtime $877,952 in extra pay to help maintain a street box alarm system that city officials have long argued is antiquated and unnecessary. * Newsweek, citing a Daily News report, says charging people to stay in homeless shelters is a lousy idea.
Albany to OTB Drop DeadWe Do Not Care What Happens to You
OTB faces Sunday shutdown as pols skip town without deal * Horse hockey: Dysfunctional Albany mopes outdid themselves in killing OTB* Lawmakers took no action to save the bankrupt New York City OTB, meaning layoffs at the agency could come this weekend. (TU/DN) * Deal to save NYC OTB eludes Albany
“I think what it is that it became a patronage mill for both parties Gov Paterson over the years,” the gov said. “It wasn’t run properly."
Last year Paterson uses OTB patronage to fix a Queens State Senator Race
The imminent nomination by Gov. David Paterson of Sen. John Sabini as chair of the Racing and Wagering Board, ending his likely bloody re-match against Councilman Hiram Monserrate in 13th SD, is part of a package deal that includes a state takeover of the city OTB operation, according to sources familiar with the deal.Sabini And OTB - A Two-For-One Deal (Updated)
NYC Needs Congressional GOP To Kill Wall Street ReformsNot one NY pol will admit it that unless the GOP yes the GOP congressional delegation stop Obama's Wall Street reform bill New York will lose billions of dollars in tax revenue. 25% of total of New York's personal income taxes come from Wall Street. Those unconscionable Wall Street bonuses and Madoff Ponzi schemes andbonuses have produced billions in taxes over the years. And those taxes pay for teachers and cops and firefighters. New York the bluest of blue states need Sara Palin's Party to save it from economic disaster. Westside liberals if they understood the economic stakes on their way of life would explode. Wall Street Must Recover Before City Can Overcome Recession, Economists Say * Like it or not, we need it! Wall St. is New York's Main Street * Sen. Chuck Schumer insisted the Obama administration’s effort to rein in Wall Street won’t hurt New York.
First the Movie then the Cancel Notice Sources: NYC To Put An End To 'Rubber Rooms' * DOE To End Rubber Room Practice
On the Waterfront of Paul Robeson High School Alisha Strawder a student at Paul Robeson High School who wrote a op-ed in Sunday's NYP was told she can't return to her classes. "The students would attack her," she was told, as well as "the adults, the staff, the security officers." That's right: staff. The horrors of Robeson HighCop Tamper With Evidence It might happen from time to time, but it is something you never read about Probe: Cop may have tried to erase bar brawl security tape * NYPD probing erased security tape from Bay Ridge brawl
All the News that is fit for Me Me Me
True News is Updating this NY1 trial daily become the other bloggers who appear on NY1 as guests have not reported on this issue. This brings into play how much news in NYC is not reported on because reporters choose not to for their own interests
NY1 gal's 'buss' ride from hell In her suit, Sammarco, who began her career at the station in 1992, says she was fired in 2001, three weeks after she complained about being groped by a fellow reporter. . . When Sammarco complained to the station's news manager Steve Paulus and HR director Elizabeth Fanfant, she claims they laughed it off.* Day of tears and rage for reporter Adele Sammarco in NY1 harassment trial
Squeezing every dime at the MTA by JAY H. WALDER * Principal taped intimidating teachers over poor evaluation
Election 2010 Rough Start for Big Name in Conn. Senate Race * Carl Paladino is still moving ahead, unrepentently, even as state officials examine breaking leases with him over controversial statements. (DN/BN) * Thirty-five people showed up at the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island to hear Carl Paladino insist he’s not leaving the governor’s race.
Law and Order Pedal-pusher cop on trial * Probe: Cop may have tried to erase bar brawl security tape * Dad beat tot to death out of jealousy, prosecutors charge * Shoeshine employee busted for torching Bryant Park booth
TERROR TRIAL
Not Over Until the Fat Lady Sings
Holder Won’t Rule Out N.Y. 9/11 Trial * The K.S.M. Files The drama playing out in Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s case shows how little has been settled about how this nation will deal with(NYT Ed) * Get the hell out of here: 9/11 trial positively cannot be in New York, Mr. Holder
Critics Turn Out at Open House on N.Y.U. Expansion
TERROR TRIAL Not Over Until the Fat Lady Sings
Holder Won’t Rule Out N.Y. 9/11 Trial * The K.S.M. Files The drama playing out in Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s case shows how little has been settled about how this nation will deal with(NYT Ed) * Get the hell out of here: 9/11 trial positively cannot be in New York, Mr. Holder
Bellevue Redevelopment Officially Dead
'Superman' Spitzer bedded three hookers in one day: book claim * Book Details Spitzer’s Fall and His Wife’s Anguish * A new book by Peter Elkind details ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s taste for prostitutes, and his many enemies. (Fortune/NYT) * “Was I set up? No. I was set up by the human psyche,” Spitzer told Elkind.Survey says: Tea Partiers are wealthier and more educated than the rest of the general public.
7 UBS customers hid $100M in Swiss assets: feds
Shaun Donovan blames mortgage-finance giants, not government mandates, for the trouble faced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Jobless claims jump in post-Easter volatility - Yahoo! Finance
Facebook Joseph Mercurio Well they have been dragging their feet on foreclosures to keep the losses off their books. Foreclosure rates surge, biggest jump in 5 years - Yahoo! News
Cuomo isn't settling with Hank Greenberg * Lehman may have grounds to sue Goldman, Barclays
