Philippine Congressman Mark Jimenez, wanted by U.S., flies out of PI to stand trial in Florida

Mark Jimenez was born Mario Crespo, and changed his name in the interests of anonymity and euphony. Before rising to prominence as a Democratic party fundraiser and donor, Jimenez had extensive business dealings in Latin America, especially in Columbia. He fled the United States after defrauding his creditors and upon learning that the FBI wished to have a word with him.

He found a welcome reception at the court of former Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who himself is doing a life sentence for racketeering and corruption. Swiftly regaining his Philippine citizenship, Jimenez/Crespo was elected a Congressman. After the demise of his patron, Joseph Estrada. Jimenez unsuccessfully fought extradition proceedings. Now, despite his immense wealth of mysterious origins, he is headed back to America, where doubtless many friends will receive him.

Ping

From here on, Jimenez's most valueable asset is reticience. He hopes to sell his silence to the highest bidder. Clearly, for the Democrats, the less he says, the better. Jimenez's principal concern, it seems, is to get to Miami early enough to make bail before the weekend.

He, more than anyone else, is aware the very interesting things can happen in a Florida lockup. If once he posts bond, Jimenez is likely to go to lock himself in a vault somewhere in Miami, and weld the door shut after him.

Yet he cannot go on being shy forever. The Feds have gone to immense lengths to extradite him from Manila, and they will be disappointed if he doesn't sing, however haltingly or out of tune.

Yet making bail will be problematic. He is a flight risk, especially in Florida, which is home to any number of his former business associates from Columbia, who would only be too glad to take him on a sightseeing light airplane ride over the open ocean.

February 21, 1997
PARAGUAY: ANOTHER SECRET
CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN DONOR!
by Staff Journalists, The Daily Republican Newspaper

WASHINGTON DESK - The United States Secret Service has released records today that confirm a contributor to the DNC/Clinton-Core Campaign had official ties to Paraguay. The donor was invited to the White House 12 times between 1994 and 1996 and the administration confirmed that he met with top U.S. officials to discuss concerns about a coup in that South American country.

The contributor, Mark Jimenez, urged the White House to try to help with Paraguay's plight and President Clinton later called that nation's beleaguered leader to express support when the government there plunged into a brief constitutional crisis last year. As the tension with the military eased, the Democratic National Committee received $100,000 from Jimenez.

The extraordinary access given Jimenez provides another example of the ability of Democratic donors to gain access to the president's foreign policy apparatus on issues of importance to them.

But White House officials on Thursday vehemently denied any link between the donations from Jimenez, a wealthy Florida computer executive whose sales to Paraguay were crucial to his growing South American export market, and administration policies affecting Paraguay. The Wall Street Journal reported the series of events earlier this week.

"The suggestion that this policy and President Clinton's support for [Paraguay's] President Juan Carlos Wasmosy had anything to do with Mark Jimenez's visits--much less his contribution--is totally baseless and without any shred of evidence," said Lanny Davis, White House special counsel.

"This policy of supporting the president of Paraguay was long established," said Davis, adding that it was the administration's "ongoing policy to support democratic governments in Latin America, especially the first democratically elected government in Paraguay in 40 or more years."

The tale is just the latest in a series of disclosures about political contributions that have buffeted the White House and preoccupied congressional investigators. Nor was it the only one that captured attention in the capital Thursday.

Webster L. Hubbell, a former official in the Clinton Justice Department, and John Huang, a former Democratic fund-raiser, told Congress that they planned to invoke the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and would not turn over documents subpoenaed by congressional investigators.

Two others tangled in the fund-raising controversy, Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie and Pauline Kanchanalak, also have indicated that they would not turn over certain business records sought by investigators.

Separately, NBC News reported that workers on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee were employed at the White House. Late Thursday, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles decided to shift five employees paid by the committee to the White House payroll after Clinton ordered a review of the practice. The employees work for the vice president as well as in the public liaison and schedule and advance offices.

"This revelation is deeply troubling and extremely serious," Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.) said of the payroll report in a letter to White House Counsel Charles F.C. Ruff. "Apart from the obvious legal concerns about the use of political funds to augment official government activity, it clearly suggests that the DNC had inappropriate and perhaps illegal access" to a White House database that is legally off-limits to party officials.

The question of Jimenez and U.S. policy on Paraguay centers on the link between large donations and special access and influence allowed those who make them. Jimenez actually has contributed more than $100,000 to the Democrats, although the amount and dates of the other donations were not immediately available. The White House suggested Thursday that the total amount will reach several hundred thousand dollars.

According to records released Thursday, Jimenez apparently visited the White House 12 times over the last few years. The majority of visits were social and political gatherings, such as two Democratic Party dinners in 1995, along with a holiday reception and Arkansas Lawn Concert.

But some of the meetings were with Thomas "Mack" McLarty, Clinton's former chief of staff who was traveling extensively through Latin America and subsequently has been named a special envoy to the region.

McLarty often met with business executives and others who had insight into political and economic issues in Latin America. After about 15 minutes of one such meeting in early 1996, when Jimenez sought to discuss an escalating constitutional crisis involving the military in Paraguay, McLarty broke up the meeting, saying that he wanted specialists in attendance, according to a White House account on Thursday.

McLarty and Jimenez next met in early April, along with two representatives from the State Department and an official of the National Security Council. A week later, Jimenez returned with Paraguay's ambassador to the United States.

"I saved democracy in Paraguay," Jimenez was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article.

But White House officials maintained that the fragile state of the government was no secret and that they were unaware of the $100,000 donation.

Said one: "This guy's taking credit, perhaps for his own purposes--and that's unseemly."

In an affidavit obtained by The Associated Press, one former employee told the investigators that Jimenez's assistant told her that Jimenez wanted to raise $20,000 from Future Tech employees for the Clinton campaign and that she was asked to make a $1,000 contribution for which she would be reimbursed.

"I agreed to make the contribution and gave a personal check in the amount of $1,000 made payable to the Clinton/Gore campaign," wrote Daria Haycox, a former employee. "Shortly after ... I received a bonus check from Future Tech in the amount of $1,000."

Payroll records show that Haycox and six other employees received $1,000 bonuses on September 8, 1995. Five days later, each of the seven gave the Clinton-Gore campaign a $1,000 donation, Federal Election Commission records show.

Campaign records also show that 22 Future Tech employees gave $1,000 each to the Clinton campaign on that same day.

Jimenez's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, referred calls to company lawyers. Lowell is also heading the Democratic staff in the House Judiciary Committee's preliminary impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.

Jimenez and his company ,Future Tech, have contributed several hundred thousand dollars to the Democratic Party and other causes. Jimenez met Clinton at one of the infamous White House coffees, and has also played golf with the president.

Nancy Luque, an attorney for the Clinton-Gore campaign, told the AP she was unaware of the matter.

In 1997, the White House confirmed that Jimenez met twice with National Security Council officials to warn of an impending military coup in Paraguay, where Future Tech sells computer parts. The U.S. helped the Organization of American States avert the coup and Clinton allowed Paraguay's president, Juan Carlos Wasmosy, to stay in the U.S. embassy for a time.

The day the unsuccessful coup attempt began, Jimenez gave $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Administration officials said there was no link between the donation and administration policies affecting Paraguay.

Monday, September 28, 1998

Five Democratic fund-raising
cases directed to Clinton judges

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chief district judge in Washington directed five prosecutions of Democratic fund-raisers to judges appointed by President Clinton, bypassing the normal system for randomly assigning cases, records show.
Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan interceded in one case, asking the sentencing judge to be lenient with the defendant, prominent Miami businessman Howard Glicken, who has been a fund-raiser for Vice President Gore. Glicken was sentenced to community service work and probation for two misdemeanors.
Rep. Howard Coble, chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on courts and intellectual property, on Monday disclosed the assignment of the cases of Glicken and another Miami fund-raiser, Mark Jimenez, now a fugitive in the Justice Department’s campaign fund-raising probe.
U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who assigned the cases, already was under scrutiny for specially assigning cases against presidential friend Webster Hubbell, as well as fund-raisers Charlie Trie, Maria Hsia and Pauline Kanchanalak. The Associated Press disclosed the assignments of the Trie and Hubbell cases last summer.
Coble, R-N.C., is seeking a judicial inquiry by Johnson’s colleagues on the appeals court and district court into a possible breach of the code of conduct for federal judges.
‘‘Did Chief Judge Johnson abuse her discretion ... and should she have allowed the normal random case-assignment process to occur?’’ Coble asked in a letter to the appeals court requesting an investigation. Johnson’s administrative assistant, Joe Alexander, had no immediate comment, nor did the offices of U.S. District judges Henry H. Kennedy Jr. and Emmet Sullivan.
Johnson assigned the cases to Clinton appointees under the district court’s ‘‘special assignment’’ policy, which allows the chief judge to bypass the normal method of randomly assigning cases by computer.
Regarding an earlier complaint by the conservative group Judicial Watch, Judge Stephen Williams of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the special assignment system was open to abuse. But he accepted Johnson’s explanation that she was simply trying to see that the court’s caseload was handled expeditiously when she assigned the Hubbell and Trie cases.
Coble asked whether Johnson made Williams aware of the Glicken and Jimenez cases.
‘‘Was Chief Judge Johnson forthcoming with this new information’’ about Glicken and Jimenez? asked Coble. ‘‘One must ask ... how much evidence would be enough to justify an investigation?’’

Jimenez, of Miami, fled the country last year after being accused of making illegal contributions to Clinton, Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and other Democratic candidates.
Two weeks after the Jimenez case was assigned to Sullivan, it was moved to Judge Paul Friedman, who also handled the campaign finance cases of Trie, Kanchanalak and Hsia. Friedman and Sullivan are Clinton appointees.
‘‘Why was Judge Sullivan directly assigned this case ... in the first place?’’ asked Coble. ‘‘How is the Jimenez case related to the Trie case?’’

Monday, January 10, 2000

Mark Jimenez, a Florida businessman, is now considered a fugitive, a Justice Department spokesman said. In 1996, Jimenez was Florida's largest donor to the Democratic Party. Accordingly, Jimenez was indicted in September on 17 counts of money laundering. Among other things, he made about $40,000 in illegal contributions to Democrat campaigns in 1994 and 1996.

Well, as it turns out, Abbe Lowell, a Washington attorney, represents the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee in the Clinton impeachment matter. Interestingly enough, Lowell is also the attorney of record for Jimenez in the contributions case.

coffee, held Feb. 6, 1996, Clinton is introduced to Miami computer executive Mark Jimenez in a hallway outside the Map Room.

He thanks Jimenez -- perhaps for some kind of donation to a fund to preserve the president's boyhood home -- saying, ''We're very excited in my hometown.'' Jimenez replies that he has visited Clinton's hometown.

The Tampa Tribune reports that ten employees of Mark Jimenez -- a Florida businessman who gave over $400,000 to the Democrats in recent years -- have told congressional investigators that they will not answer questions under oath. This would bring to 102 the number of witnesses who have taken the Fifth or left the country rather than answer questions concerning the Clinton scandals. In 1996 Jimenez was Florida's largest contributor to the Democrats.

Here's another one:

Mark Jimenez warned: Congress is not a haven for fugitives
Posted: 11:58 PM (Manila Time) | June 05, 2001
By Volt Contreras and Alcuin Papa Inquirer News Service

CAN fugitive Mark Jimenez, who managed to get himself elected as a congressman, find a haven in the House of Representatives?

Not if administration Rep. Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte can help it.

"Congress is not a haven for fugitives," said Barbers, chiding seven of his colleagues for declaring "too early" their support for Jimenez in his bid to escape extradition to the United States.

The House should be careful not to make it appear that it had "unwittingly exonerated" Jimenez who is wanted by the US on charges of mail fraud, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions.

A press statement, believed to have come from the Jimenez camp, came out on Monday saying that at least seven House members--former speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella, Rolex Suplico, Federico Sandoval, Prospero Pichay, Rodolfo Albano Jr., Joey Hizon and congressman-elect Willie Villarama--have thrown their support behind him.

At the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 42, Jimenez, the newly elected congressman for Manila's sixth district, left no doubt that he is banking on his election to stave off extradition.

"I love this country, I love my constituents, I love you all," he declared to wild cheers from his supporters outside the sala of Judge Guillermo Purganan who is hearing the extradition request filed by the justice department.

Jimenez had filed a counter-motion asking that a hearing be held before he is extradited and to stop his arrest.

Jimenez's lawyer Mario Bautista argued that to jail his client would deprive his constituents of representation in Congress.

Bautista said he wants his client to face the tedious extradition proceedings outside of jail as a free man while serving his three-year term as congressman.

Bautista also claimed that Jimenez was "on 24-hour security by the government as a state witness. There is practically no minute of the day that the government does not know where he is. He will not flee the country."

DOJ Undersecretary Merceditas Gutierrez said, however, that Jimenez was not under the government's witness protection program as a possible witness in the plunder charges against ousted President Estrada.

However, Bautista presented a supposed "secret" agreement with DOJ officials stating that his client was under its protection. But Gutierrez rejected this, saying what was presented was only a photocopied document.

Barbers said Jimenez "should speak for himself? in the proper court."

He said the House "has no business" judging the criminal liability of any government official except in impeachment proceedings.

Otherwise, he stressed, "(we) may send the wrong signals to our fellow countrymen and the international community, who must now be harboring negative perceptions of our electorate."

He said the show of support from seven of his colleagues "may be too early."

"We may be unwittingly exonerating him for fraud, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions," he said.

"The House of Representatives or any government office must never be a refuge for fugitives from the law," he added.

During the one-hour hearing, both sides presented their rebuttals but could not substantiate them to Purganan's satisfaction, prompting the judge to order them to submit their arguments in memorandums on June 11.

The DOJ argued that Jimenez's arrest would satisfy the country's "obligation to the United States" as provided in the extradition treaty.

Bautista countered that the arrest of his client is a violation of his constitutional right, which should take precedence over any treaty.

He added that since Jimenez was now a public official, he will be "constantly under the public eye" and that since his arrival in the country last April 1998, he has never left.

The DOJ countered that in the past all provisional arrest warrants under the treaty were all granted by the courts and that as congressman, Jimenez may use his influence to escape.

It added that only a warrant of arrest against Jimenez would guarantee that he would not escape while his trial is being heard.

The 54-year-old Jimenez, whose real name is Marcel Crespo, is facing two counts of conspiracy to defraud the US government, four counts of tax evasion, two counts of wire fraud, six counts of issuing false statements and a total of 33 counts of making illegal campaign contributions to the Democrat Party.

The crimes were allegedly committed between September 1994 and March 1998. A warrant for Jimenez's arrest in the US was issued on April 15, 1999.

Jimenez's lawyer said that his legal counsels in the US are questioning the warrant of arrest issued by South Florida district court judge Robert Dube and claimed the cases were politically motivated.

Jimenez won by a narrow margin the congressional race for Manila's sixth district. His opponents have accused him of massive vote-buying.

DSL FYI PING

abs-cbnews.com (Manila) - 08/19/01
DOJ sets conditions on Jimenez talks with US (KENNETH STARR IS ATTORNEY FOR FUGITIVE CLINTON DONOR)

Jimenez knew the Clintons from their Arkansas days. Perhaps someone in Latin America suggested that he call.

"WHAT HE WAS good in networking had been established in his early years as an entrepreneur in Manila. But Jimenez apparently honed his talents in developing connections all the more in the United States and Latin America, where he has claimed to have had tete-a-tetes with national leaders, including U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Jimenez has said that he had been part of a small group of Clinton believers at a time when many were not giving the young Arkansas governor much chance to clinch the presidency. And while Florida court records say his contributions to the 1995 Clinton/Gore campaign was only $25,000, the Associated Press has cited U.S. Secret Service records showing that Jimenez was invited to the White House 12 times between 1994 and 1996. Photos made available to the press by Jimenez are also usually the ones showing him dining with Bill and Hillary.
Aside from the Clintons, Jimenez has claimed to be a friend to 17 Latin American heads of state. News reports have even said Jimenez urged Clinton to help Paraguay President Juan Carlos Wasmosy when a coup d’etat was launched against the latter in 1997." http://www.pcij.org/imag/PublicEye/markedman2.html

Old Mark J was so touched by the sight of historic southern architecture that, according to Michelle Malkin, "he even shelled out $100,000 toward the restoration of the former president's ancestral home in Arkansas." http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin062101.asp That was probably more than the home was worth new.

There's an old saying in intelligence that there are no coincidences. Arkansas was full of coincidences. Riady, Mena airport, Latin American businessmen and Mark Jimenez.

Bautista added that the letter to the US State Department also indicated Jimenez’s willingness to return to the US on July 28, five days after he was to attend the President’s State of the Nation Address before Congress.

Bautista added that the letter to the US State Department also indicated Jimenez’s willingness to return to the US on July 28, five days after he was to attend the President’s State of the Nation Address before Congress.

I think the State of the Nation Address before Congress refers to the Philippine Congress. Filipinos have adopted a lot of American political practices.

Mark Jimenez was pretty close to former Philippine President Joseph Estrada, whose drug connections were extensive. Estrada's chief enforcer, Panfilo Lacson, was Estrada's top cop by day and the drug syndicate kingpin by night. Jimenez's mob connections are an open secret.

former (Philippine) solicitor general Frank Chavez, ... said: "The real reason for bringing him back to the United States is not mail fraud, not illegal campaign contributions. It is something deeper and more serious (such as his) reported knowledge of drug dealing and money laundering in his area of business operations in Latin America." http://www.inq7.net/nat/2002/nov/28/nat_9-1.htm

Mark Jimenez in his humble Philippine home before being turned over to the Feds.

For your records.

Roger Clinton...