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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (120854)	4/17/2008 1:08:17 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 173976

Oh, I am sure he has a black book. Nobody can talk so much about gays, gay sex, gay bars etc without being an insider.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (120854)	4/17/2008 1:35:22 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 173976

The prosecutor hoisted ex-mayor on his own words Thursday, April 17, 2008 She had them at "thievery." It was the first word prosecutor Judith Germano uttered in her five-hour closing last week -- a one-word master stroke that gave jurors a simple way of wrapping up all the conflicting testimony and all the confusing documents and giving it all a name. Advertisement Thievery. A word that led them to their surprising guilty verdicts yesterday. "I thought of using it early on," Germano said moments after the jury ended the trial of former Newark mayor Sharpe James and his one-time lover Tamika Riley. At first blush, an odd choice, because neither James nor Riley was charged with theft, but with fraud. And it was not even a word the young government attorney herself coined to characterize events in Newark. It was Sharpe James' word, and it impaled him. "I thought it would be appropriate to use his own words to describe him." The genius of the ploy: She used a speech given by James himself in 2004, when he pressed in Trenton for a law to limit the power of city councils to sell city-owned land. The government had argued James, as state senator, sponsored the law to help Riley -- a contention that bordered on the implausible. But that wasn't the point of why Germano used his Senate speech. She used it to show just how slimy Newark politics was, and she put James smack in the middle of the municipal mud -- a man, who, as he believed of his council antagonists, had larceny as well as lust in his heart and on his mind. This is what James said -- and what Germano read to the jury: CONTINUED 1 \| 2 \| 3 Next nj.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (120854)	4/17/2008 2:46:47 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 173976

Corruption trial: Hurtgen wanted to use state funds on deal By Cary Spivak Thursday, Apr 17 2008, 06:26 AM Nick Hurtgen, once the insider's insider of Wisconsin politics, may have left our state in the last century. But the man known as a pal to governors of all poltical persuasions has never forgotten Wisconsin. Especially if it involved a financial deal that might have involved state funds controlled by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. In the high-profile corruption trial of Illinois fund-raiser Antoin Rezko, a top national Democrat this week provided strong testimony about a Hurtgen deal earlier this week. (Note: The reference to Hurtgen is deep in the story.) Joseph Cari, a former finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee, testified that he headed a private equity firm, HealthPoint Partners, that had been given $35 million to invest on behalf of an Illinois retirement fund. Cari said Hurtgen stepped forward to say he could "help get allocations for HealthPoint from Wisconsin pension funds if Cari paid finder's fees," according to one account of the testimony. On Jan. 29, 2003, Hurtgen called Patricia Lipton, then head of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, to pitch an investment in HealthPoint, said Vicki Hearing, spokeswoman for the agency that oversees the pension fund for state workers. Hearing said Marc Marotta, a political confidant and former top aide to Gov. James Doyle, also called Lipton's successor in 2004 regarding HealthPoint. Marotta and Hurtgen are friends. Hearing noted in an interview this week that SWIB logs of the calls and related documents were subpoenaed some time ago. She didn't know who issued the demand or why. SWIB never invested in HealthPoint, she said. Hurtgen left his job as a top aide to then-Gov. Tommy Thompson to join Bear Stearns' Chicago office in the mid-90s, back when the firm was still a respected, powerful player in financial circles. Under Hurtgen's leadership, Bear Stearns underwrote some the biggest financial deals in Wisconsin. Last year, the feds charged Hurtgen with extortion and fraud for his role in a kickback scheme involving a suburban Chicago hospital. Until he was indicted, Hurtgen enjoyed strong relationships with top officials in Doyle's administration as well as County Executive Scott Walker, former U.S. Rep. Mark Green and Thompson. As for Cari, he has pleaded guilty to attempted extortion in exchange for testifying against Rezko, an influence-peddler who has counted Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Illinos Gov. Rod Blagojevich among his friends. blogs.jsonline.com