$100 Million Mortgage Fraud in Queens: Local Papers Silent

Unbelievable. Thomas Kontogiannis, Queens "businessman", convicted briber, admitted money launderer, and shadowy financier about town, has apparently run a $100 Million mortgage fraud in Queens while on trial in federal court for laundering bribes to a sitting US Congressman.

The unbelievable part is, this is not newsworthy enough for the New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post, or Newsday to cover. Nor, as far as I can tell, any of the local borough-centric papers.

What the hell is up with that? Why do I have to read a California paper to get this news? This is a major national story, and the local media . . . *crickets*.

Long Island War Profiteer Finally Indicted

Well it's about freakin' time. David H. Brooks (a far worse person than the execrable but comparatively benign NY Times columnist), he of the $10 MILLION bat mitzvah, has finally been indicted.

$10 million dollars for a teenage daughter's birthday party with entertainment by Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Aerosmith, and 50 Cent. And all paid for with proceeds from selling . . . defective body armor to our troops!

From the Trentonian:

David H. Brooks, 53, the former CEO of DHB Industries Inc., and Sandra Hatfield, 54, the former chief operating officer, were charged in a superseding indictment with manipulating DHB's financial records to increase earnings and profit margins, thereby inflating the price of DHB's stock.

"Corporate executives who line their own pockets at the expense of their shareholders flaunt the responsibilities they owe their companies and the investing public," U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell said in a statement.

The former DHB executives are accused of falsely inflating the value of the inventory of DHB's top product, the Interceptor vest, to help meet profit margin projections. The vest, designed to withstand rifle fire and shrapnel, was made for the Marine Corps and other branches of the military.

This guy should rot in prison (up to 70 years* if convicted), but as the poster at Daily Kos pointed out, in the Bush Administration he'll probably get the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

*and please note, that doesn't include any charges for minor things like, say, war profiteering, defrauding the federal government, and criminal negligence for knowingly selling defective body armor to the armed forces.
UPDATE: Photo removed. Looks like the picture I had was the wrong David H. Brooks.

Salacious GOPer Divorce: Spawn of Satan, Richard Mellon Scaife Gets Some Karma

Wow. This was buried in the Style section of the Washington post. 5 pages of delicious schadenfreude that couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. This guy is the poster child for why we need a robust estate tax in this country. He has over a billion dollars that he never did a thing to earn, and which he uses to oil the GOP propaganda machine. Here's a taste:

Remember him? The cantankerous, reclusive 75-year-old billionaire who's spent a
sizable chunk of his inherited fortune bankrolling conservative causes and
trying to kneecap Democrats? He's best known for funding efforts to smear
then-President Bill Clinton, but more quietly he's given in excess of $300
million to right-leaning activists, watchdogs and think tanks. Atop his list of
favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such
as "Restoring a Culture of Marriage."
The culture of his own marriage is
apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the
story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night
in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.

snip

Now we know that Scaife is beneficiary of nine different trusts, including
one called the "1935 Trust," with an approximate value of $210 million, and
another called "The Revocable Trust," valued at $655 million. Altogether, these
gushers are worth about $1.4 billion.

snip

We learned, too, that the Tribune-Review has been a gurgling sinkhole from
Day One; Scaife's lawyers say their client has pumped as much as $312 million
into it over the years. And he's going to have to keep on pumping. The
Tribune-Review's CEO has predicted an annual shortfall of $20 million for years
to come.

Karl Rove's Politicization of the DOJ, and a Miscarriage of Justice in Alabama

Did Karl Rove push the politically motivated prosecution of Alabama Democrat Don Siegelman?

That's what a Republican lawyer has stated in a sworn affidavit. Keep an eye on this story, it's been simmering for a while now, and about to boil over into a national scandal.

Go back and read Scott Horton's (Harper's) earlier posts on the Siegelman case to get a handle on the depth of the corruption at DOJ and in the Alabama GOP. It truly is stomach churning to see that this sort of thing is so pervasive. Also check out this post at The Next Hurrah (good reading, as always, from emptywheel)

Ironically, Mrs. Gary is currently in Montgomery, Alabama for work. And for the past couple of days, it keeps coming up; yesterday it was the bible-thumping preacher who accidentally killed himself during a kinky . . . well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, so here's the autopsy report. And today, another bombshell in the Siegelman case.

Queens Sleaziest, Part II: Thomas Kontogiannis

Disgraced and imprisoned felon/former Congressman Duke Cunningham (R - Alcatraz) has apparently begun to cooperate after a year in the slammer.

And that means more juicy details on Queens connection to one of the most egregious bribery scandals in US history: Thomas Kontogiannis.

Some choice tidbits:

The FBI stated that:

More than $1 million in bribes was laundered by being sent to Kontogiannis instead of going directly to Cunningham. Investigators identified at least 70 bank accounts maintained by Kontogiannis at one bank.

Despite his many businesses, Kontogiannis has not filed a tax return since 2001.

For the first time, investigators shed light on what Kontogiannis expected to get from Cunningham – help on a potential sale of fighter jets to his native Greece.

The Rolls-Royce that drew so much attention early in the investigation was not the only car that Cunningham made the contractors buy for him. In only two days in early 2002, the congressman bought a $43,000 Thunderbird and a $41,000 BMW from Bob Baker Ford in San Diego with $63,000 of his payment coming from bribes. That was three months before Wade gave him $10,000 toward the used Rolls-Royce.

In mid-2004, when Cunningham needed to make repairs to his boat, he called Wade and demanded $6,500 in cash. Wade took the money out of his petty cash, stuffed it into a bulging envelope and rushed it over to a Cunningham fundraiser at a Washington restaurant, giving it to a Cunningham staffer.

In his prison interviews with investigators, as summarized by the FBI, the former congressman is reported to have:

Openly “recalled exerting pressure on government officials” to reward his bribers.

Said Wilkes told him he was “hiding money in a bank account in Panama” to pay him bribes.

Spoke of having had to find ways to get around objections from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, both of whom tried to block Cunningham's spending projects for Wade and Wilkes as wasteful and unneeded.

FBI Affidavit (pdf)
FBI Transcript (pdf)

What will it take for our local press to get interested in this story?