Los Angeles Homeless Alert Blog - WE GOT AN UNMANAGAEABLE CRISIS AND GARCETTI IS DEAD AT THE WHEEL!: new york pension scandal

Showing posts with label new york pension scandal. Show all posts

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Is NY AG Andrew Cumo's Personal Money Manager IMPLICATED in New York Pension Scandal?

I don't know anything about this, but it is VERY well written. A+, wouldn't YOU say?
From LA Daily Blog reader:

Is Andrew Cuomo's Personal Money Manager, Gregg Hymowitz of EnTrust Capital, is Implicated in New York Pension Scandal

New York based Entrust Capital co-founded by Gregg S. Hymowitz (a former vice-president at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and previously an attorney with Skadden Arps) is implicated in the widening New York Pension corruption scandal. As directed by Hank Morris and Alan Hevesi, EnTrust Capital received an investment from New York State Common Retirement Fund through the investment vehicle managed by Consulting Services Group ("CSG") called Liberty Oak. Liberty Oak is a hedge fund of funds that exclusively invests New York State Pension money directly into funds like EnTrust. CSG and Liberty Oak are featured prominently in the NY AG and SEC criminal indictments and have made millions of dollars in payments to Hank Morris. At the same time, Andrew Cuomo has received millions of dollars in income as an investor in EnTrust. However, Gregg Hymowitz and EnTrust are not featured in the NY AG and SEC criminal indictments. Why not?

Hank Morris was a good friend, neighbor and like Cuomo an investor into Gregg Hymowitz's fund EnTrust. The three partners of EnTrust (Gregg Hymowitz, Mark Fife and Michael Horowitz) have been major contributors and bundlers of Alan Hevesi from October 2004 through June 2005.

During the same time period these political donations were being made in 2004 and 2005, Alan Hevesi, Hank Morris and Gregg Hymowitz had numerous conversations regarding how EnTrust could obtain an investment from the NYS Pension Fund (emails and phone records will confirm this). At the request of Hevesi and Morris, the three EnTrust partners contributed additional monies in June 2005. Shortly thereafter, in the middle of 2005, Morris signed a contract with Liberty Oak to be its placement agent for NYS pension investments. This contract is referenced in the SEC complaint. Pursuant to the contract between Morris and Liberty Oak:, the more money Liberty Oak invested into funds like EnTrust the more money Morris received as a placement agent.

At the end of 2005, Hevesi and Morris introduced EnTrust to the investment staff of the NYS Pension Fund. Hevesi and Morris lobbied on numerous occasions for Liberty Oak to make an investment into EnTrust. Hevesi, Morris and Hymowitz all clearly understood that if Liberty Oak received a commitment from the NYS Pension Fund then EnTrust would receive a commitment from Liberty Oak and Morris would receive his fee. This is in fact what happened.

In July 2006, Hevesi signed a memo (which is in the NYS Pension Fund files) that directs the Pension Fund to wire funds in the amount of $200 million to Liberty Oak. Concurrently, Liberty Oak wired an investment of $15 million into EnTrust on behalf of the NYS Pension Fund account. It is clear that this investment was directed by Hevesi and Morris. It is also clear that Hymowitz conspired in and was an active participant in the plan to exert influence by Morris and Hevesi. In fact, Hymowitz continued to lobby Hevesi and Morris rather than the NYS Pension staff because he wanted more than just $15 million. Phone records will confirm the numerous conversations between Morris, Hymowitz, and Hevesi during this period. Emails between Morris and Hymowitz also exist.

The NY Times has quoted Hymowitz as stating that he is a "close and personal friend of Andrew Cuomo." Hymowitz, his wife and his business partners have donated and bundled millions of dollars for Cuomo campaigns. In Andrew Cuomo's 2002 failed gubernatorial campaign, Hymowitz, his wife and his partner donated $175,000 and bundled multiples of that amount. Gregg Hymowitz also served as Cuomo's finance chair for that race. Recent political filings indicate that Hymowitz continues to donate and bundle for Cuomo. This includes a $20,000 contribution that Hymowitz made to Cuomo in January of this year just as the AG's investigation involving Hank Morris was accelerating. Is the timing the Hymowitz political contribution to Cuomo a Coincidence, or is it another example of a quid-pro-quo involving a prominent NY politician that warrants further investigation?

At the same time that Hymowitz was donating and bundling money for Andrew Cuomo, Cuomo personally invested almost all of his liquid net worth of more that $1 million into EnTrust.

Hymowitz manages a trust for Andrew Cuomo (at what fee, if any? Are these standard terms?). In addition to investing personally, Cuomo's gubernatorial campaign invested $750,000 into EnTrust. EnTrust granted special consideration to Andrew Cuomo's campaign by: (1) giving it one of the 35 slots in EnTrust that Federal Regulations allow for investors below minimum asset requirements; and (2) EnTrust waived the minimum investment requirement of $l million. The campaign subsequently received $150,000 profit. Almost 20% return-from its investment into EnTrust over an extremely short period of time. Did the campaign receive a discounted fee? Did the other investors receive the same return?

Since 2004, Andrew Cuomo has personally received over $1 million from Gregg Hymowitz and EnTrust. In 2008 alone, Andrew Cuomo's tax returns show he received at least $200,000 from his investment in EnTrust. This return was during a time that the public markets were in steep decline and hedge fund indexes suffered substantial losses. This is astonishing. How did the other EnTrust investors do? Ironically, Cuomo's investment in EnTrust spans almost identically the time period Cuomo is investigating Allan Hevesi as NYS Comptroller.

What would happen if it becomes public that EnTrust was implicated in the NYS Pension scandal?

In short, investors in EnTrust would redeem their investments. This "run on the EnTrust bank" would severely damage the value of EnTrust's investment portfolio-especially any illiquid assets that would have to be sold quickly. This would have catastrophic consequences for investors like Andrew Cuomo if they were not the first ones out the door.

Gregg Hymowitz and EnTrust continue to receive special treatment. Besides the payment Hank Morris received, who can find out about the conversations between Morris, Hevesi and Hymowitz regarding promises for political contributions in exchange for the EnTrust investment? In exchange for influencing the NYS Pension Fund investment, did Morris also receive a management fee discount on his personal investment in EnTrust?

How can Andrew Cuomo even ask these questions without being conflicted or tainting the entire Hevesi investigation? Is AG Cuomo's close personal, business and political relationship with Hymowitz preventing him from doing his sworn duty? Will this relationship survive the same scrutiny Cuomo is exercising on others?

HeatPolitics.com

Monday, May 11, 2009

Internal Memos To LA Daily Blog From Wetherly Insider Tells History of the Capital Investment Firm

I find all the memos I am reading regarding the background players who will be/are starring in the United States of America, NATIONWIDE pension scandal that is even bigger than I thought when I started warning City Hall of the problem, to be very compelling.

So here is a little, "show you how the clock is made" (instead of just telling you what time it is) regarding Wetherly Capital, who are only SOME of the players who have sucked this city, state and country dry. These are the names we will be remembering as we witness the end of an era.

Zuma,

Dan Weinstein, as well as his main financial backer Kapo Ron Burkle who NEXT TO the monopoly De Beers is the largest financial contributor to the Democratic Party of the United States, all follow very closely in the “footsteps” of De Beers. [Note: Someone sent a message saying, "Weinstein's main financial backer is Richard "Dick" Ziman (Former CEO of Arden Realty).]

Why, apart from you only drinking coffee over the past 24 hours, can you not get your arms around the fact that those who profit the most from war, which allow the victors to steal the land and all the mineral resources below, before then making all the rules and regulations which keep them in the pound seats before they NEXT plunge the world into an ongoing genocidal war, back all sides to every conflict, which does not prevent them from owning the judicial system?

BTW, included in these original documents that were produced by the Wetherly Capital group including the most “smoking gun” document titled, WATER FUND which Dan Weinstein’s co-managing director, Vicky Schiff produced, herself, in anticipation of our most important meeting on February 8th, 2002, is a letter dated April 3rd, 2002 which is addressed to me and written by Wetherly Capital Group’s one attorney, Stanford Law School trained William H. Jackson Esq.

I doubt there exists anywhere in the entire universe a more incriminating document, let alone one produced by an Ivy League Law School alumnus.

Not to mention below is a joint safety deposit box agreement form along with one of the keys, that was held in both my and Vicky L. Schiff’s names, and which once contained the original “side agreement” between Ms. Schiff and me, that spelled out, because I had served her so well in “extricating” herself “without a scratch” from Lou Gonda, who along with his father were the second largest shareholders of now Government owned enterprise, AIG, Ms. Schiff agreed to pay me 10% of every penny she made until such time as she retired; and by the way, Ms. Schiff back in the summer of 2001 was in her mid-30s and very much in the prime of life and of “sound mind”, no different than today, I assume.

Moreover, copies of her two checks to me (ZD sees copy of checks in attachment) Capital Group also executing to the letter, my Retainer Consulting Agreement that both Ms. Schiff and Mr. Weinstein signed along with me on September 17th, 2001.

Not to mention in his letter dated April 3rd, 2002, some 20 days before Stanford Law School Professor Joe Grundfest Esq. warns me, “Could I stop you?”, Stanford Law School graduate Mr. Jackson is, while “blackening his hands” to the Nth Degree, offering to pay me US$ 9,375, the balance of my retainer.

Ron Burkle, who was the first to hire Bill “Rhodes-De Beers Scholar-Pardon-Marc Rich” Clinton after he left the White House after giving Marc Rich a Presidential Pardon at the 11th hour, most likely would have been quite happy to settle me a cool US$ 3 million.

To mention little of Mr. JRK has copies of all these beyond belief self-incriminating documents which I shall be using in filing an epic class action lawsuit against both the State of California as well as the US Federal Government to return all tax monies to those of us not getting our big government bailouts, which of course are going to those who have failed, while making people such as yourself increasingly on the edge.

You should at least realize that having “deep pockets” has meant the exact same as having the “big gun”.

But now, if you haven’t been corrupted, you are realizing the information you have, once shared, and not a moment before, makes you and everyone you touch that much more powerful and invigorated while the “losers” feel increasingly weaker; worse yet, they are increasingly isolated and “left to their own thoughts”; better yet, unless hermits they cannot physically hide with their increasingly worthless money as well as all the ill-gotten gains obtained by having simply been on the side of those increasingly dependent on the big gun, who after killing their strongest opponents then rely on their control of the “information flow” to systematically brainwash those enslaved, which is exponentially difficult to do as credible people such as me broadcast at Internet light-speed.

Not to mention, the next generation of children are that much more wired than the past, and will catch on that much quicker to the games of the preceding generation who now have to deal with that reality catching up fast.

Most paralyzing, of course, for all those who usurp their limited authority is not knowing who exactly is getting the information and when, but quite certain it is inevitable that this Knowledge-Information-Light cannot be stopped.

AND AS A REWARD FOR STILL READING, time...to GIVE, THE PEOPLE...WHAT!!! THEY!!! WANT!!!

I wasnt' going to post this yet, but my computer screen is on the blink, and who knows next time I can blog, so here's an idea of the memos I am sifting through as background in this story. Perhaps, you'll find it compelling?

It wasn’t all that long ago that Ms. Schiff arranged a fundraiser at her house for Ms. Kathleen Connell the current State Controller as referenced earlier in one of the hyperlinks. Her boyfriend Mark, Siffin that is, was also present. There was also another Mark in her life, a Mark Weinstein, who I introduced her to. Although they didn’t hit it off as well as the other two Marks they did end up in business together butt that came crashing down. This time, however, I stepped up to the plate and saved the day. Mark Weinstein and I go back around 20 years. He is unquestionably one of the biggest small time movers and shakers building a $150 million plus real estate portfolio from little scratch in a space of a decade. He tactics and strategies however, are on a par it turns out with the biggest players in the industry who as we know lie, steal and cheat.

Mark Weinstein and Ms. Schiff eventually resolved their dispute butt they failed to consult me on the settlement. There is however, a “mutual hold harmless” provision within their settlement agreement that in the event I were to take legal action against either one of them the other party would not be liable. What is interesting is that I was never a party to any agreement between Mark Weinstein and Ms. Schiff. My name doesn’t appear on any documents pertaining to their business matters other than this “release and settlement agreement.”

It so happens that a very similar “release and settlement” agreement was sent to me, first by fax, followed up the next day with a FEDEX package, by the same lawyer who drafted the settlement between Mark Weinstein and Ms. Schiff. This settlement “proposal” is however, strikingly different to the one involving Ms. Schiff and Mark Weinstein. For starters the parties are mostly different. Only Ms. Schiff’s name appears in both settlement agreements. The main other “party” in this “ram it down my throat” nonsense is Mr. Dan Weinstein.

Mr. Dan Weinstein though is really nothing more than a whiner and a lackey for the some much more serious players. Certainly, Dan Weinstein has had his share of the headlines especially in the last Los Angeles Mayoral race butt he is a man who mostly takes instructions from higher up and mostly in the form of the telephone calls. At sum point one might want to subpoena all his phone records although again, I am sitting on all the evidence one would need to convince a jury that Mr. Weinstein and his other buddies who helped get Wetherly Capital kick-started are the ones really calling the shots.

The last time I met and spoke with Dan Weinstein was on February 8^th probably within days of the Siffin court decision authorizing the deposition of Mr. Siffin. It seems though that Mr. Weinstein failed to inform his and/or Vicky Schiff’s lawyer of this rather telling meeting that took place in the World headquarters of Arden Realty, no doubt under the watchful eye of Mr. Burkle who is Mr. Clinton’s recent business partner.

Wetherly Capital have a rather interesting selection of corporate clients who they “assist” in helping raising monies from institutions like CALPERS. I have no idea whether they have had any success in these particular efforts although Mr. Burkle threw a couple of million into the kitty when he got his first $200 million installment from CALPERS. I doubt whether Wetherly Capital even have the right licenses to be doing what they are doing butt then again these folks make the rules.

http://LADailyBlog.com: Because city hall likes me to have nothing but time to blog! Ask any councilmember or Villaraigosa. Hey guys, guess what's yet to come? YIKES! And like Boy George of Cultre Club once said, "I got nothiiiiiiiiin', but time."

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Comment Moderate Turned OFF on LA Daily Blog, For Now.

Someone has made the request for Zuma to turn the comment moderation to help speed along some information processes regarding the CALPERS (California) PENSION SCANDAL, that also includes NEW YORK.

So let's give it a shot, and I guess I'll just have to waste more of my life moderating in real time. And I WILL delete any nutty and wasteful comments as I f*cking feel like it, so don't be a crybaby when your shady personal attacks ON ANYONE are deleted and you lose the rest of whatever point you may have been making within the deleted comment. THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC MEETING AT CITY HALL. This is my own private blog, so don't try hollerin' that crybaby stuff, cause that'll be the FIRST stuff to go. (You don't like it, DO NOT READ THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS BLOG.)

So, like Rick Ocasek once said,...Oh, I already used that one today. And since this is a short post, here are the most recent posts on LA Daily Blog.