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THIS will knock your socks off....
We should know him, but we don’t. I will now...

http://www.nndb.com/people/777/000051624/

Joe L. Allbritton
Born: 29-Dec-1924
Birthplace: D’Lo, MS

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Business
Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Well-connected Washington **billionaire

Military service: US Navy (1943-46)

In addition to Riggs Bank, Allbritton owns nine ABC affiliates; the callsign of Washington, D.C. station WJLA-TV contains his initials. He used to own The Washington Star. Still owns a number of other papers. Personal friend of the Reagans and Bushes. Owns racehorses. Major player at the Alfalfa Club.

Allbritton developed a business relationship with brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the mid-1990s, and traveled to Chile on multiple occasions during that time period. Apparently, Riggs bank opened 8 private accounts for the despot, which held between $4 and $8 million.

Father: Lewis A. Allbritton
Mother: Ada Carpenter
Wife: Barbara Jean Balfanz (m. 23-Feb-1967, one son)
Son: Robert Lewis Allbritton (b. 1969)

Law School: LLB, Baylor University (1949)
Administrator: Regent, Baylor University (1997-)

Allbritton Communications
Riggs National CEO
Member of the Board of Riggs National
The Washington Star Publisher (1974-78)
George Bush Presidential Library Trustee
Alfalfa Club 1977
Council on Foreign Relations
Freemasonry
Kennedy Center Trustee Emeritus
Wedding: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver (1986)

And then there is this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15462-2005Mar7.html
Robert Allbritton Resigns as CEO of Riggs Ahead of Merger
Allbritton is the 35-year-old son and only child of Joe L. Allbritton, who gained control of the company and its Riggs Bank subsidiary in 1981. Though the family still controls nearly 40 percent of the outstanding stock, no family members will remain on the board or in the executive suite. Joe, who was chief executive until 2001, and his wife, Barbara, announced last April they would resign as directors as a money-laundering scandal engulfed the company.

In stepping down from Riggs, Robert Allbritton cited a desire to devote time to Allbritton Communications Co., his family-owned chain of television stations, where he is chief executive.

His decision to leave comes as several independent directors at Riggs have been conducting a review of his and his father’s personal use of a former company jet. The Department of Justice is also conducting an inquiry into the use of corporate assets at Riggs.

Paul Clark, a spokesman for the Allbritton family, said the inquiries into the father’s and son’s use of the plane and a company-provided apartment played no role in Robert Allbritton’s decision to resign.

Robert became chief executive and chairman after his father retired in 2001. Current and former associates at the bank said he was a likable if aloof executive who spent much of his time at Allbritton Communications, which has offices adjacent to Riggs’s downtown Washington headquarters.

Much of the day-to-day management of Riggs was left to Lawrence I. Hebert, a longtime Allbritton family lieutenant who is chief executive of Riggs Bank, the company’s main subsidiary.

Under Robert, Riggs began investing significantly in improving the bank’s inefficient back-office systems and focusing on growing the Washington area retail banking network.

But those efforts did not improve Riggs’s financial performance, perennially poor compared with its peers, and the institution began to run into trouble in the middle of 2003, when regulators cited Riggs for its lack of anti-money-laundering controls. By the spring and summer of last year, the problem had mushroomed into a full-blown Washington scandal, complete with congressional investigations and Capitol Hill hearings.

Evidence of a divergence of interests between the Allbrittons and the company they controlled and ran for 24 years has been growing in recent months. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, along with several independent directors, has expressed annoyance at Robert Allbritton’s absence from the company’s affairs, given he was the chief executive, according to sources familiar with the directors’ thinking but who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

Hebert, not Allbritton, appeared as the senior executive in U.S. District Court last month when Riggs Bank entered a felony guilty plea for failing to prevent possible money laundering by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and officials of the West African oil state of Equatorial Guinea. Riggs paid a $16 million fine in that action, on top of an earlier $25 million regulatory fine.
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And it keeps getting better.....