Posted on 10/24/2012 5:39:56 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
Gloria Allred's Surprise For Mitt Romney Revealed! Posted on Oct 23, 2012 @ 05:15PM
By Jen Heger - Radar Assistant Managing Editor
Gloria Allred's October surprise for Governor Mitt Romney involves allegations about a child custody matter that the Republican presidential hopeful testified about involving his very good friend, and former CEO of Staples, Tom Stemberg and his divorce form one of his two ex-wives, RadarOnline.com is reporting.
The founder of Staples, who spoke on behalf of Governor Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida last summer, has four sons from two different ex-wives, Maureen Sullivan Stemberg and Dola Hamilton Stemburg. Mitt Romney's hedge fund, Bain Capital, was an early investor of Staples. Tom Stemberg's sons are in their mid-teens and early twenties.
"Governor Mitt Romney gave sworn testimony about his observations of Tom's role as a father to his four sons," a source close to the situation told RadarOnline.com. Our source wouldn't provide any additional information because of Governor Romney's sworn declaration and gag order.
Stemberg's first wife, Maureen, had a documentary, The Maureen Sullivan Stemberg Story: A Portrait in Courage, which aired on Lifetime. According to a 2008 press release, "Maureen Sullivan Stemberg will provide an in-depth account in this first-time tell all tale of the interweaving relationships and strange bedfellow that business has made in her life. Such luminaries include former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney - who was the former Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential campaign, as well as one of the first major investors for Staples while he was employed by Bain Capital, Boston, MA. This story will include the injustice of the Mass. Probate Justice system. Other heavy hitting names have yet to be released in this as of yet untold story including Dola Davis Hamilton Stemberg."
Tom Stemberg's divorce attorney, Joel Kozel is expected to be at the family law courthouse in the Boston area on Wednesday morning as the Boston Globe petitions to have the court records unsealed.
As RadarOnline.com was the first to report exclusively, the Boston Globe will be in court for an emergency hearing "in an attempt to obtain a court order to unseal the sworn testimony given by Mitt Romney in a prior court case and to lift a gag order so that the parties can speak about Romney. Gloria Allred will be in court representing one of the parties in the case," a source close to the situation previously told us.
"Ms. Allred's client feels that the public needs to know about Governor Mitt Romney's role in this very important case. Governor Romney is running for President of the United States and this goes to a very important character issues," the insider revealed. It's unclear if Governor Romney will have lawyers present at the hearing on Wednesday morning.
The emergency hearing will take place at the Norfolk Probate & Family Court in Canton, Massachusetts, and Justice Jennifer Ulwick will oversee the proceedings which will begin at 9 a.m. EST.
Stemberg founded Staples and was the CEO for 16 years. According to the Huffington Post, "Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Romney helped found, was one of the early investors in Staples, and the former Massachusetts governor remained on the retailer's board for more than a decade. In claiming he helped create some 100,000 jobs in the private sector over the years, the Romney campaign has leaned heavily on the success of the office supplier, citing roughly 90,000 Staples jobs in their math."
Romney's pal was featured at the RNC last summer and addressed the delegates and said, "He (Mitt Romney) never looked at Staples as merely a financial investment. He saw the engine of prosperity it could become. Today Staples employs nearly 90,000 people. It has over 2,000 stores, over 50 distribution centers, and it is part of a competitive industry that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses get started on their own. You have to ask yourself, why would an administration that can't create any jobs demonize someone who did?"
According to a report from the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, Staples is one of the lowest wage employers in the country.
During a interview with PBS' Frontline earlier this year Stemberg said the first time he met Romney, "when you first walked in and saw Mitt, he looked like a guy who ought to be president of the United States. This guy, he looked perfect; he dressed perfect; he spoke perfectly. He asked the most poignant questions in a very, very nice way and didn't make you feel defensive and really drew the best or worst out of you. He was just really, really good."
Stemberg also said that Mitt Romney was no shrinking violet and wasn't concerned about his friend entering politics when he decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. "Nobody pushes Mitt Romney around. Having said that, if there's one person whom he will almost always defer to, it's Ann Romney," Stemberg told PBS.
Most polls indicate that the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is a statistical dead heat.
Gloria Allred, Tom Stemberg, and representatives for Governor Mitt Romney didn't immediately respond to request for comment on this story.
Stay tuned to RadarOnline.com for developments on this story
But 60 million isn't going to quite do the trick. He's going to need closer to 69 million himself. Even George Bush' 64 million might be a squeaker and that would happen only in the unlikely event several million Democrats just fell over dead or something.
But I've gotta' say, if this is all Allred has ~ testimony in somebody else's child custody case ~ she hasn't got much.
One thing that should be made quite clear, if this story is accurate, it's highly doubtful (to me) that Gloria Allred is acting on her own. Rather, this looks like the work (a coordinated effort) of the Obama campaign .
He may have said something in testimony that showed what will be perceived as bias against... some class of people. Who knows? I do know that if something like this trumps Obama’s nightmare actions regarding Libya and his neo-fascist leanings in the eyes of the voters, the US as we know it is over anyway.
That’s about as devastating as having women’s resumes in a binder. These morons are desperate and I love it!
Juanita Broderick contacted Allred during the Clinton era.
Allred blew her off.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Exactly. This is how Obama got elected to the US Senate, his opponent's sealed divorce proceedings were SOMEHOW leaked to the press.
Unfortunately for them, I think this is going to blow back in their faces. There is simply no there there. I read a little last night about Steinberg's ex-wife and she is completely cuckoo.
Obama's problem all along is that he couldn't find any dirt on Romney.
Assuming the lady accepted the 500,000 shares of Staples in the settlement, it’s probable that Mitt, representing the major lienholder, attested to the current appraised value of those shares ~ so that’d make him a rather neutral witness ~
Apparently.
Romney has a friend who was manager of Staples — something like that — and who got divorced during Romney’s time at Bain.
The wife got some shares of Staples before it was a household name that were valued at about $2.50 a share. She got half a million shares. Called to testify, apparently Romney agreed that the shares were right-valued, maybe over-valued at that time.
About 2 years later Staples had grown and went public and their shares were then worth about $19 a share.
The accusation apparently is that Romney understated the value of those shares 2 years before they went large.
It’s sort of silly. It’s ignoring about 2 years of growth in a start-up business. It is not unusual for start-ups to go from rags to riches pretty quickly. To me, 2.50 to 19 is not really a rags to riches story. It sounds like sort of reasonable growth one might expect of a business that is making it.
If THIS is the Alred accusation, then this is sheer desperation. Short of the lady saying she was having an affair with Romney, and that never was part of the accusation, I don’t see that this has legs at all.
I agree. I can’t see that people care to get into the nuances of some people who do not know’s divorce case years back.
Gloria is pretty desperate here.
I read that Monroe Inker was her attorney. He was always the go to guy for women seeking big settlements from their wealthy husbands. He was a shark and I’m sure charged huge fees. One of the stories I read said that she wound up suing him and the case was dismissed.
What’s next? Testimony that he forgot to flush the toilet he used at a friend’s house 20 years ago?
I read this in another thread. Supposedly Romney advised the value of Staples share was $2 during the settlement, and then when Staples went public in a couple of years later, the IPO was around $19. The ex wife sold her shares before the IPO, so she felt cheated by Romney.
Perception is reality. There is nothing in All Red’s claims but it doesn’t matter. The hope is simply to get a nothing story on the nightly news so that voters who are busy preparing supper, playing with their dog or whatever hear the following words in a brief segment:
Romney... sources confirm... uncovered... court documents... sealed documents... bitter... settlement... devastating... hidden... objections...
The voter who doesn’t yawn through the story but only hears it as background noise now has the idea that something sinister involving Romney has been unearthed. Nothing could be further from the truth but subliminal persuasion is a very powerful tool.
It is not the nothingness of the story that is reported, it is getting the key words used by the media to describe this nothing of a story in play that is the goal.
Again, perception is reality.
If this is all they have, and there isn’t something “sordid”...then...this is truly the hail mary of hail marys.
Meaning...their weapon is empty and now they are throwing pebbles.
I fail to see how this gets unsealed - it is not directly pertinent to the candidate - the testimony was on someone else’s behalf. An “innocent bystander”, as it were.
No, you have to understand. This is Clintonian word-parsing. The papers WERE drawn up - they were never filed.
As usual, the press didn't ask him the right question. Not that it would have mattered.
That’s all they’ve got? Testimony from a dusty old divorce case that did not even involve him personally?
Romney doesn’t have his own divorce records, so Obama had to find someone else’s?
Question of the Day: Is it possible for a woman to make a millionaire out of a man?
Answer: Yes! Provided he’s a billionaire first.
As this divorce and Romney’s subsequent testimony involved the custody and well being of, then, minor children, No judge in their right or wrong mind would entertain a motion to unseal the testimony. The real victims here could be the couple’s children, as they begin to learn the tawdry and unsettling details of their parent’s divorce. A judge felt that testimony and the case file needed to be sealed - any judge who second guesses that logic years later, and for third party political purposes, pisses all over judicial honor and respect.
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