Posted on 10/26/2001 6:50:14 AM PDT by nctracy
IT'S not news that somebody else is accusing the Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites) of running a race-based shakedown operation under the guise of civil-rights activism.
What is news is who's saying it now: Harold Doley Jr., an African-American Wall Street securities broker.
Doley, 54, is one of the wealthiest African-Americans in the country. As the first black man to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites), the well-connected Doley was instrumental in helping Jackson start his Wall Street Project in 1997.
Doley, head of his own securities firm, says he agreed with the Wall Street Project's stated goals of expanding financial-sector job opportunities for blacks. But he bailed out when he became concerned that the initiative might be turning into "racketeering."
Yesterday, at a Manhattan press conference held to announce a new Rainbow/PUSH project, Jackson refused to comment on his old friend's allegations of possible racketeering.
"I'm not sure what that means. That's illegal," a stunned Jackson replied. "People who make statements like that are not dealing in reality."
Doley laughed when I repeated Jackson's response.
"Let me bring Rev. Jackson back to reality," Doley said. "He's using African-Americans to enrich himself.
"His effectiveness is in shaking down corporate America. His income for his operations, since he's come to Wall Street, has gone from $695,000 to over $17 million last year. There is no dot-com stock I'm aware of that has had that kind of success."
Doley recounted a familiar litany of backroom deals in which Jackson allegedly secured special access and favors for his allies and contributors by threatening, if only by implication, racial trouble if white-owned firms didn't play along.
"I saw the way he operated. I saw some of the draconian deals that he cut," Doley said.
When Doley went to his lawyers with concerns that Jackson's sweetheart deal-making may violate the RICO statutes, they advised him to cut all ties with Jackson.
Doley remains concerned about what he views as Jackson's unethical dealings with the mammoth pension-fund industry, where the influential minister has allegedly lobbied for a fixed percentage of pension-fund investments to be handled by minority-owned firms.
"He goes into a pension fund and demands 300 percent more [for his clients] than Wall Street is getting," Doley alleged. "The investing public is paying the price. It isn't fair."
Mr. Doley....can we quote you on that?
My stocks are down. That means I have been contributing to Jesse and didn't know it.
Let's call this by it's REAL name - Domestic Terrorism.
Hope he puts some of his money to good use here and takes some ads in mags like Jet stating his opinion of the real Jesse
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