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Raymond Reggie trying to get officer impersonation charge tossed (Ted Kennedy's B-I-L)
2theadvocate ^ | 4/28/05

Posted on 04/28/2005 3:43:21 PM PDT by Libloather

Reggie trying to get officer impersonation charge tossed
By The Associated Press

TGRETNA -- A Democratic Party operative who is the brother-in-law of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy has asked a state judge to throw out a charge accusing him of impersonating a police officer in suburban New Orleans in June 2002.

Raymond Reggie's attorney, Mike Ellis, contends in court documents that the two-year time limit to bring the case to trial expired June 21. But prosecutor Kim McElwee said she has until October to try the case.

At issue is what court events stop the clock on Reggie's right to a speedy trial. The charge is a felony that carries up to two years in prison. McElwee, a St. Charles Parish prosecutor assigned to the case after the Jefferson Parish district attorney and the state attorney general removed themselves, said those disqualifications caused delays in the case.

Reggie, 43, already faces sentencing Oct. 26 in New Orleans following his guilty pleas April 21 for federal bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy.

In the alleged impersonation case, three women in a car were stopped at a railroad crossing in Metairie on June 14, 2002, by a man in a car with a blue light flashing on his dashboard. The women told police that the man got out of his car, flashed a badge and ordered the driver to open her window. The women later identified the man as Reggie, the Jefferson Parish sheriff's office said.

Reggie, who owns a media consulting company, has said he is innocent. State District Judge Robert Murphy has set arguments for May 17 on whether to dismiss the charge.

McElwee said Reggie was convicted of a similar incident in Orleans Parish about 1990 and she hopes to present evidence of that case.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: charge; corruptdems; impersonation; kennedy; kennedyfamily; officer; raymond; raymondreggie; reggie; ted; tossed; trying
From the 23rd -

Kennedy Relative Tied to Hillary Rodham Clinton Fund-Raising Case
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: April 23, 2005


Raymond Reggie pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Thursday.

WASHINGTON, April 22 - A brother-in-law of Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has been working as a confidential informant in a criminal case against Hillary Rodham Clinton's former fund-raising director, according to people involved in the case.

The brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie of Louisiana, has apparently been acting as an undercover informant in the case and secretly recorded a conversation he had with Mrs. Clinton's former fund-raising director during a steak dinner.

In that conversation, the two discussed a 2000 fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton that is at the center of the federal government's criminal investigation, those with knowledge of the case say.

The precise nature of the conversation is not clear. But those familiar with the case said that federal authorities intend to use Mr. Reggie as a witness in their case against David Rosen, the finance director of Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, who is accused of illegally underreporting the cost of the fund-raiser held for Mrs. Clinton.

His role as a possible witness in the case was first reported Friday in The New York Sun and The New York Post.

Mr. Reggie, who comes from a politically prominent Louisiana family, pleaded guilty to fraud charges on Thursday as part of a plea bargain in an unrelated case in New Orleans. He had been accused of taking part in a scheme to cheat banks out of money.

Mr. Reggie has been involved in Democratic politics for years, including work he has done for the campaigns of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Mrs. Clinton, among others. He has a friendship with Mr. Clinton that dates to at least 1996, according to one person familiar with the two men, and has been an overnight guest of the Clintons at the White House.

Mr. Reggie's sister, Victoria, is married to Senator Kennedy. And his father, Edmund, was an influential municipal judge in Crowley, La., who was a friend of former President John F. Kennedy, as well as a close adviser to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who served four terms in office before being sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for extortion in 2001.

News that Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law has been secretly working with federal authorities in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton's former fund-raising director provides a strange new twist in a case that already stands out for its unlikely cast of characters.

At the center of the fund-raising inquiry is Peter Paul, a well-connected figure with a criminal past who says he helped organize the fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign to win former President Clinton's support for a business venture.

The fund-raiser, a Hollywood gala held in August 2000, drew some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry and raised more than $1 million for Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign in New York. But in the months after the event, Mr. Paul - whose record includes pleading guilty to possessing cocaine and attempting to defraud Fidel Castro's government out of millions of dollars in 1979 - turned bitterly on the Clintons.

He accused the Clinton campaign of falsely reporting that the August 2000 gala cost far less than the nearly $2 million he claims to have spent to organize the event. In January of this year, federal authorities produced an indictment charging that Mr. Rosen had underreported the cost of the affair.

The indictment was largely based on the claims of Mr. Paul, who has been cooperating with prosecutors, according to people involved in the case. The indictment accuses Mr. Rosen of falsely reporting that the August 2000 gala cost $401,419.

Prosecutors are apparently working under the theory that underreporting the cost of the affair would have freed up additional dollars to spend on the campaign itself, under a complicated series of campaign-finance formulas governing such expenditures.

But people involved in Mrs. Clinton's 2000 campaign say that underreporting would not have produced any financial benefit.

Federal prosecutors have turned over to Mr. Rosen's lawyers a transcript of the taped conversation between Mr. Reggie and Mr. Rosen, because Mr. Reggie apparently will be called as a prosecution witness at Mr. Rosen's coming trial, according to people involved in the case.

In the tapes, Mr. Reggie apparently manages to steer the conversation with Mr. Rosen in the direction of a discussion about the production costs of the 2000 fund-raising event, according to one person involved in the case.

Mr. Rosen, in turn, apparently told Mr. Reggie of his frustration at having had to deal with Mr. Paul and described Mr. Paul as an unreliable character, according to people involved in the case.

Paul Sandler, Mr. Rosen's lawyer, declined to comment for this article. Neither Mr. Reggie's lawyer nor a spokesman of the Justice Department responded to phone messages seeking comment.

Mr. Reggie has apparently been cooperating with federal authorities since 2002, when he taped the conversation he had with Mr. Rosen, according to one person involved in the case.

1 posted on 04/28/2005 3:43:22 PM PDT by Libloather
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