Hassan Nemazee Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to $292 Million Bank Fraud

PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that HASSAN NEMAZEE pleaded guilty today to charges of defrauding Bank of America, N.A. ("BofA"), Citibank, N.A. ("Citibank"), HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC"), and a longtime friend and business associate of a total of more than $290 million in loan proceeds. NEMAZEE entered his guilty plea before United States District Judge SIDNEY H. STEIN in Manhattan federal court.

According to the superseding Information, filed today, to which NEMAZEE pleaded, other documents filed in this case, and statements made during NEMAZEE's guilty plea:

From 1998 to 2009, NEMAZEE obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from BofA, Citibank, and HSBC. To obtain the loans, NEMAZEE misrepresented to the banks that he owned hundreds of millions of dollars in collateral, in the form of securities and other assets, which he did not own. In fact, NEMAZEE used fake documents, including account statements, to show his supposed ownership of the collateral. The documents also contained forged signatures of persons associated with the Westminster Securities Corporation ("Westminster"), the brokerage firm at which NEMAZEE claimed to hold these assets, as well as Westminster's clearing firm.

The fake account statements and other documents that NEMAZEE provided also contained telephone numbers, supposedly for Westminster and its clearing firm, assigned to "virtual offices" that NEMAZEE himself had established or to a cellphone that NEMAZEE obtained. NEMAZEE created at least two "virtual offices" in Manhattan that held themselves out, at his direction, as being associated with Westminster and its clearing firm.

NEMAZEE represented to BofA that the loans were for, among other things, making investments, purchasing partial interest in a private plane, and purchasing two luxury apartments in Manhattan. One of the loans from BofA, a $100 million line of credit, was guaranteed by NEMAZEE's longtime friend and business associate, who pledged a multimillion-dollar home in Colorado as collateral on the loan, not knowing that the collateral that NEMAZEE was pledging did not exist. As of August 2009, NEMAZEE owed approximately $142 million to BofA and $74.9 million to Citibank.

In August 2009 -- when Citibank began to ask questions in order to verify the existence of the purported collateral that NEMAZEE had pledged for the Citibank loan, and after Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") had interviewed NEMAZEE about the Citibank loan -- NEMAZEE drew down on a line of credit that he had fraudulently obtained from HSBC earlier in 2009 and used those funds to pay Citibank the $74.9 million that he owed.

NEMAZEE was able to continue the fraud for longer than a decade by, among other things, making partial repayments on his borrowings from BofA with proceeds of his fraud on Citibank and making partial repayments on his borrowings from Citibank with proceeds of his fraud on BofA.

NEMAZEE used the proceeds of his fraudulent schemes to, among other things: purchase an apartment and land in Italy; make monthly maintenance payments on a Park Avenue apartment; pay for the upkeep of a 12-acre property in Katonah, New York; make personal donations to the election campaigns of federal, state, and local candidates, political action committees, and charities; and make various other investments.

NEMAZEE, 60, of Manhattan, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison on each of the three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud to which he pleaded guilty. Each count also carries a maximum fine of $1 million or twice the gain or loss resulting from the crime.

As part of his guilty plea, NEMAZEE agreed to forfeit his interest in various real properties, corporate entities, hedge funds, securities accounts, bank accounts, a 2008 Maserati Quattroporte, and a 2007 Cessna aircraft.

NEMAZEE is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge STEIN on June 30, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. NEMAZEE's brother-in-law, SHAHIN KASHANCHI, 46, of Telluride, Colorado, is separately charged in an Indictment with aiding and abetting NEMAZEE's bank fraud by manufacturing the fake account statements and other documents that NEMAZEE used to defraud BofA, Citibank, and HSBC. His case is pending.

United States Attorney BHARARA praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. BHARARA stated: "NEMAZEE orchestrated an elaborate shell game to defraud three major banks, scamming them to the tune of $290 million to finance his posh life and create a reputation as a political kingmaker. Working with our partners at the FBI to investigate and end schemes like NEMAZEE's is central to this Office's mission of aggressively policing white-collar crime."

This case was brought in coordination with President BARACK OBAMA's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, on which Mr. BHARARA serves as a Co-Chair of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Working Group. President OBAMA established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.

This case is being prosecuted by the Office's Complex Frauds Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys DANIEL W. LEVY and MICHAEL D. LOCKARD are in charge of the prosecution.

The charge and allegations contained in the Indictment charging KASHANCHI are merely accusations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Thanks to Piasa for this post:

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2348924/posts?page=4#4

To: kcvl; thouworm; Cindy
The first clip is Stewart’s take on Dem fundraiser Hassan Nemazee, with the money quote from Joe Biden (“If I had my way, we’d be calling him Ambassador Nemazee”):
Obama, Clinton Money Man Guilty Of Major Fraud Scheme Judicial Watch ^ | 03/19/2010

The shady Iranian fundraiser who for years donated lucrative sums to top Democrats—including the president, vice president and secretary of state—has pleaded guilty to a major bank-fraud scheme that could land him in jail for nearly two decades.

Disgraced Democratic money man Hassan Nemazee admitted this week that he defrauded three financial institutions out of nearly $300 million in loan proceeds by falsifying documents and signatures to show he had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of collateral. The Ivy League-educated crook then used the proceeds to donate big bucks to the campaigns of federal, state and local candidates.

Among them are some of the nation’s best known and most powerful Democrats, including Secretary of State and former New York Senator Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Nemazee was actually the national finance chairman of Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign as well as John Kerry’s in 2004.

The corrupt “investment banker” went on to raise more than half a million dollars for Obama after Clinton’s primary defeat and donated the maximum ($50,000) allowed to the new president’s inauguration committee. Less than a year ago Nemazee hosted a $28,500-a-head fundraiser for Obama in his luxurious Upper East Side New York penthouse.

When Nemazee was criminally charged last fall, top Democrats scrambled to return his tainted money and there is plenty floating around the coffers of the party’s elite. For nearly a decade Nemazee was a key figure in Democratic fundraising circles, donating and gathering hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nemazee was so well-connected that in the late 1990s Bill Clinton nominated him to be a U.S. ambassador in Argentina though the position never materialized.

4 posted on March 22, 2010 11:58:22 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

2001 : (NEMAZEE JOINS THE BOARD OF AIC —— see IAPAC) In 2001, at the invitation of Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, whom he counts as a “personal friend,” Hassan Nemazee joined the board of the American-Iranian Council, a U.S. lobbying group that consistently has supported lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and accommodating the Tehran regime.
Hassan Nemazee also helped establish the Iranian-American Political Action Committee (IAPAC) Because of his association with IAPAC, Hassan Nemazee was accused of serving as an agent for the Islamic government of Iran by the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI)- via Crosswalk.
54 posted on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:17:58 AM by red flanker

JANUARY 2004 : (PRO DEMOCRACY IRANIAN-AMERICANS RAISE CONCERNS ABOUT KERRY CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISER NEMAZEE WHO WANTS TO NORMALIZE U.S. RELATIONS WITH IRAN) WASHINGTON — Iranian American supporters of the effort to bring democracy to Iran are raising concerns about the resurgence of Senator Kerry’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, questioning the role of a Kerry fund-raiser who wants to normalize ties with Tehran. Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian American financier based in New York, was on the board of the American Iranian Council [aic] when that organization arranged for President Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, to apologize for America’s [ALLEGED] role in the 1953 coup that brought the Shah to power in Iran. —— “Kerry’s Fund-Raiser Worries Advocates Of Iran Democracy,” NY Sun ^ | Tue, 27 Jan 2004 | ELI LAKE , Posted on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:52:39 AM by F14 Pilot

AUGUST 25, 2009 : (ARREST OF NEMAZEE —— See CHUCK SCHUMER & US ATTNY PREET BHARARA) Poster:...Here’s the US Attorney of the Southern District Preet Bharara’s complaint against Democratic mega-donor Hassan Nemazee, the chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. who was arrested today on charges that he used phony documents to trick Citigroup Inc. into lending him up to $74 million.
Nemazee is perhaps best known as a fundraiser for both President Obama and former Sen. Hillary Clinton. He also served as national finance chairman for the DSCC when it was headed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, which is sort of ironic, considering that [ US Attorney of the Southern District Preet ] Bharara was, until very recently, working as chief counsel to the senior senator of New York.
Nemazee has maxed out in contributions to both Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, giving them a total of $4,800 each (two $2,400 checks to Schumer in April - one for the primary, one for the general - and two of the same amount to Gillibrand in June).
Woops. I missed some additional contributions. Nemazee gave Gillibrand $1,000 in 2005 and another $1,000 in 2006. He gave two $2,000 donations to Rep. Carolyn Maloney in 2005. There was also $151,700 to the DSCC between March 2006 and March 2009.
I’m still awaiting word on whether this money will be returned.-——— “Nemazee Fallout,” http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/08/nemazee-fallout.html
August 25, 2009
****
Nemazee, Hassan Complaint
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=f5d43a963a56b9c309ebf6ca16ea6e39&topic=128637.msg790365#msg790365

Thanks to piasa for the additional posts:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2477327/posts?page=30#30

To: Grampa Dave
In a December 3 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Kerry said that if he was president, he “will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran.” In that same speech he chastised the Bush administration for failing to hand over Iraqi-based insurgents to Tehran in exchange for members of Al Qaeda. “It is incomprehensible and unacceptable that this administration refuses to broker an arrangement with Iran for a mutual crackdown on both terrorist groups,” he told the council.
Mr. Kerry and his fund-raiser have drawn the criticism of many Iranians pushing for America to support Iranian democrats. “Unfortunately Mr. Nemazee is still advising Mr. Kerry,” a spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran,Aryo Pirooznia, told The New York Sun yesterday. “Everyone remembers in the last of year of the Clinton administration when Mr. Nemazee gave a speech at the AIC calling for the removal of all sanctions against the Islamic Republic. We will be asking any Iranian-American of principle to vote for President Bush knowing that Mr. Kerry has recently said that Iran is moving toward democracy.” -— “Kerry’s Fund-Raiser Worries Advocates Of Iran Democracy,” NY Sun ^ | Tue, 27 Jan 2004 | ELI LAKE , Posted on Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:52:39 AM by F14 Pilot

30 posted on March 23, 2010 6:08:36 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies | Report Abuse]]

To: Canedawg; Cindy; backhoe
NOVEMBER 1995 : (HASSAN NEMAZEE HOSTS A DINNER FEATURING VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE WHICH RAISED $250,000 FOR THE DNC) November 1995 he hosted a dinner featuring Al Gore, raising $250,000 for the Democratic National Committee-———http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0503/6309142a_print.html
Recall that Nemazee is also related to the Cisneros family of Venezuela.

31 posted on March 23, 2010 6:23:25 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies | Report Abuse]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.