Posted on 03/02/2006 3:08:59 AM PST by Liz
Franklin Raines — the ousted cooked-books chief of mortgage giant Fannie Mae — is being accused of corrupting its directors by giving them $12M in charity checks to ignore his scandals.
A federal shareholder suit yesterday claims that Raines lavished directors with generous donations to their favorite charities, funneled through a Fannie Mae charitable foundation he controlled for serving the needy......to "dominate his fellow board members" and prevent them from challenging his activities in a mounting $10.8 billion accounting scandal at Fannie Mae.
Raines who was chairman of Fannie Mae's board and the its charitable foundation, directed the money to charities on which the directors served as trustees or supporters.....In exchange, the directors looked the other way and kept quiet about raising questions in at least 78 board meetings when the issues arose.
The money also influenced directors to let Raines and his financial chief Timothy Howard to simply walk away from the mess with $135 million in golden parachutes, the suit said.
Among pet groups Raines "directed" cash to were the Brookings Institution, which got $3.9M, and John F. Kennedy Center, which got $2.9M. Director Kenneth Duberstein served as a trustee at both organizations, the suit says. Two other charities where Duberstien served as a director were the National Alliance to End Homelessness Inc., which got $1M, and Johns Hopkins University, which got $240,000, the suit said.
The Fannie Mae Foundation, begun in 1979, characterizes itself "as the largest foundation in the country devoted to affordable housing and the revitalization of communities." It says it provided $47.4 million in 2004 to 600 non-profit groups nationwide.
The Senate Finance Committee said (is) investigating whether the charitable foundations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac violated lobbying and campaign finance laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
no
Here's a few possibilities:
Raines filed false documents (a crime).
Claimed he was still owed salary to June 2005---in his diseased mind he was still CEO.
Withdrawal symptoms?
Who knows what goes on in the mind of greedy corrupt Clintonistas like Raines.
Well, if what he did was illegal, someone really should look into it....
The number of crimes committed here are extensive:
The extent of Raines’ subsidiary interests in financial structuring of federal tax grants and whether Raines conspired to allocate tax assets to friends, family and insiders (that's an easy one to find).
As far as the "charitable foundation," the IRS is investigating foundations as major money-laundering machines. There are numerous ways they can steal, illegally convert, then launder money in these foundations.
Raines, and other federal employees who are bonded should incur imprisonment, fines, or other criminal penalties for lying on bonding applications.
Justice Dept. Opens Fannie Criminal Probe
Thursday September 30, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Justice Department has opened an investigation of possible accounting fraud at Fannie Mae, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, after a federal regulator said the mortgage giant may have manipulated its earnings targets.
The Journal reported that the investigation is still in the preliminary stages. Fannie has been under fire since the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, or Ofheo, accused the company of improper accounting that allowed senior executives to pocket multimillion-dollar bonuses.
According to the newspaper, officials have said that some Fannie Mae executives may have misled regulators, which in some cases would be an added criminal offense. Because of the nature of Ofheo's disclosures, the Justice Department concluded that it demanded an investigation, the Journal added.
Ofheo referred its report to prosecutors last week, lawyers close to the case told the Journal. The regulator's report raised questions of possible accounting manipulations involving financial instruments used to hedge risk, and expensing of costs associated with the company's core business of buying home mortgages from lenders around the country.
No one was immediately available at Fannie Mae or the Justice Department to comment on Thursday.
United Technologies is co-sponsoring Hannity on Broadway, is that true?
EXCERPT: 14 give $250,000 each to Bush fete Inauguration likely among costliest. Manny Fernandez Washington Post Dec. 19, 2004----More than a dozen wealthy Bush supporters have donated $250,000 each to help pay for the president's second inauguration, which is shaping up as one of the most expensive. According to a major donor list on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's Web site, 14 companies and individuals each have given $250,000, and 10 have contributed $100,000. The list, which includes all donations made as of Thursday, also shows a contribution of $25,000 and another of $50,000. The $250,000 donors include former Enron President Richard Kinder, Dell Computer founder Michael Dell and Texas oilman and corporate takeover specialist T. Boone Pickens. Also on the $250,000 list are ExxonMobil Corp.; Sallie Mae Inc., a Reston, Va.-based company that annually provides billions of dollars in student loans; United Technologies Corp., a unit of which manufactures Army Black Hawk helicopters; the utility Southern Co.; and Stephens Group Inc., an Arkansas venture capital company.
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