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MDE EXCLUSIVE: KLOBUCHAR CONTRIBUTOR PLEADS GUILTY TO SECURITIES FRAUD
By Michael Brodkorb | May 17, 2007
According to the Federal Election Commission, Bert Fingerhut contributed $2,000.00 to Senator Amy Klobuchar's campaign on September 19, 2006. Yesterday, Fingerhut pleaded guilty to securities fraud.
"ASPEN — Aspenite Burt Fingerhut pleaded guilty Wednesday to a sophisticated securities scam he spearheaded with friends and relatives, reaping illegal profits of more than $12.5 million.
The well-known philanthropist, wilderness advocate and longtime member of Mountain Rescue Aspen faces up to five years in prison for leading the decade-long conspiracy.
As part of the plea deal in the criminal case, Fingerhut has forfeited $4.5 million in illegal proceeds and will hand over $6.5 million more before sentencing in September. Fingerhut was released on a $100,000 bond, said his lawyer, Larry A. Mackey." Source: Vail Daily News, May 17, 2007.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Fingerhut and his co-conspirators in a sister civil case that seeks fines, interest on ill-gotten gains and a return of the illegal cash. Mackey said a proposed settlement of the civil case is under review by a judge.
'The investigation continues, and we fully expect to make more arrests of those who participated in this fraudulent scheme,' said assistant U.S. attorney Karl H. Buch, who handled criminal charges against two of the defendants, The Associated Press reported.
'I am terribly ashamed by my misconduct,' Fingerhut said in a prepared statement. 'I fully accept that what I did was wrong. I apologize to my family and friends.'" Source: Vail Daily News, May 17, 2007.
Click here for the complete story and here to read the press release from the SEC.
Please check back to Minnesota Democrats Exposed for more information on this developing story.
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24 Responses to “MDE EXCLUSIVE: KLOBUCHAR CONTRIBUTOR PLEADS GUILTY TO SECURITIES FRAUD”
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May 17th, 2007 at 5:31 PM
Sounds like a culture of corruption to me. She should resign immediately having knowingly taken donations from a known criminal. In fact, anyone associated with her campaign needs to be investigated immediately due to the fear others could have been involved in this corruption. We don’t have evidence yet of that but since we believe there is a possibility a full investigation must take place.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:16 PM
What about many of the GOP members of the House and Senate who accepted money from Jack Abramoff? Should all of them resign too?
May 17th, 2007 at 6:55 PM
Kathy, yes and all the democrats that accepted money from him too. Let’s throw in Harry Reid,Diane feinstein and Rep.Jefferson for good measure too.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:18 PM
What about many of the GOP members of the House and Senate who accepted money from Jack Abramoff? Should all of them resign too?
If I had a nickle for every time I heard a democrat say that I’d have more money than that Jefferson clown with the frozen money.
What’s good for the Republican goose is good for the democrat gander. I was just stating exactly what liberal bozo’s have been saying for the last few years. Doesn’t apply when it’s your gang, eh?
May 17th, 2007 at 9:21 PM
This guy broke the law, he should be punished for what he did. But there is no comparison between taking money from a guy who defrauded his company, and the Duke Cunninghams, William Jeffersons, etc of this world who were using their office to do favors to enrich themselves or their campaign coffers. Fingerhut wasn’t charged with any public corruption stuff and there’s no evidence of it. You can’t hold candidates responsible for a donor’s crime when the crime doesn’t even have anything to do with matters before the candidate. Like I wrote with the Norm Coleman debacle (which did involve taking money from people who were trying to buy off legislators), the only thing you can do is give back the money and cooperate if there is an investigation. But if the donor broke the law in an area that has nothing to do with a candidate, there’s no problem. I know for a fact there are people that have donated to Pawlenty that have broken the law; but if they broke a law (like getting a DUI or getting busted with drugs) that has nothing to do with Pawlenty and he’s not responsible. If someone gave him money and wanted to not be prosecuted, that’s a different story.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:39 PM
Chet, Klobuchar got 2,000 from this guy, this guy who Im sure she doesnt know and was seen as just another great donor. Abrahmoff and Delay gave thousands and thousands of dollars, I usually read $30,000 when I read about politicians on wikipedia. There are some CLEAR differences between the money given to these politicians and the money given to Klobuchar.
I would categorize this as one of your “shitty and I am running of things to post about” posts Michael.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:53 PM
Well shouldn’t she return the contribution?
May 18th, 2007 at 6:31 AM
I love watching these libs defend Amy like nothing’s wrong, she’s not part of a culture of corruption. But when it’s a Republican, all bets are off and everyone ever connected with a criminal fellow like this is tainted by them.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:47 AM
Chet, If you took all of the labels and names off of this stuff and looked at the crimes you’d see that Abramoff was buying public officials and Fingerhut was scamming his company. Apples and oranges. Crimes need to be punished, but not all crimes are the same.I didn’t say nothing is wrong, I said it wasn’t a case of trying to buy a public official.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:28 AM
JHC Otter, “a sophisticated securities scam” is “public corruption stuff” as you so eloquently put it.
I don’t think Amy should resign over it. But am looking for an equal level of intensity of calls for her to return the campaign contributions as came from liberals recently demanding Norm Coleman return contributions from Bill Allen and Rick Smith.
That Norm apparently, 5 years ago, accepted campaign contributions from individuals who later attempted to bribe a legislator with consulting fees, is at least equal to Klobuchar accepting campaign contributions from an individual who swindled the stock market of $12.5 million.
Neither candidate is responsible for the acts of their contributor… but for public appearances, both should return the dough.
Beyond that, neither otter nor Andrew know a shit wit about what they’re talking about with regards to Abrahmoff or Delay. They’re just throwing the words out there because they think it sounds evil.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:40 AM
Libs like Otterscrubber continue to try and run from what they’ve done in the past. “Apples and oranges”, indeed. Every time a Republican so much as lived on the same block as someone convicted of a crime these clowns were all over them to resign, return the money, fire anyone who ever heard of them (and investigate anyone who MIGHT have known them), etc. etc. etc. Their self-righteous indignation for no other purpose than politics was enough to make someone puke.
So when one of their own has a contributor convicted of a crime they don’t see the humor in one of us calling for exactly what they’ve called for multiple times over the years. They defend their people, call it “apples and oranges”, run from it, hide, twist, dangle, etc.
Obviously I don’t think Amy K. should resign over this because she had nothing to do with it. For that matter, I really don’t care if she returns the donation or not since it wasn’t HER crime. She got a check and cashed it, that’s it.
But it’s fun to poke these libs in the eye with their own stick of self-righteousness and watch them squirm.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:57 AM
What’s even funnier is watching an idiot like Andrew completely falter with the facts. In the time he’s posted here, I wonder if he’s even been 10 percent accurate. He does excel at wild accusations and innuendo though. Coupled with the reasoning skills of a 7 year old, and Andrew is a funny m-f to be sure.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:19 AM
The Silence is defening on boht Amy Klobuchars not offering to return and campaign contibution money. We would of could the Star Tribune, where Amy’s Papa worked, to not bring up this story.
May 18th, 2007 at 9:28 AM
Dem or repub, who really cares?
May 18th, 2007 at 9:46 AM
Chestnut, you are entitled to your opinion, but calling out someone else about factual accuracy? I’m still waiting for an explanation for “Bill Gates is a registered Democrat”. People who live in glass houses…
May 18th, 2007 at 10:26 AM
Historically, Bill Gates backs democrats. I put one un-verifiable comment out there… gee sorry.
But fools like you and Andrew who get 99 percent of everything wrong… yes, I’ll call you out on it.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:31 AM
Dont quite see where I made shit up about in my posts in this thread but whatever.
Also, it is now been a day since this breaking news was released, maybe give Amy some time to return the money. Maybe she doesnt even know about this yet because she has better things to do then read crappy news articles like this.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Hell, call me Cynthia McKinney, although I wouldnt say 9/11 was a conspiracy done by the Bush administration, I’m not that out there. In Iraq purely for oil, damn right!
May 18th, 2007 at 10:33 AM
“insanely liberal” Is there any other kind?
May 18th, 2007 at 10:47 AM
In Iraq for oil. That’s precious.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:21 AM
Andrew where is this oil?? If we would take it, which I believe we should have, gas prices would be going down.
Which brings me to my next point, now that democRats are in charge and we now have record gas prices it becomes absolutly clear that either the democrats were playing politics back when the Republicans were in charge or the democrats are now part of “big oil” and taking advantage of Americans. I wonder which it could be.
Andrew I find most of your post are indeed made up and often are based in no facts at all. More often than not what you like to do is try to change subjects so you do not have to answer for your sides screw ups. Also you are out there and one I would say has tasted the Kool Aid.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:53 PM
The Oil companies have us over a barrel because they can. Oil companies are big contributors to the GOP. Oil execs will be giving themselves BIG bonuses worth tens of millions before the year is out. Just wait and see when the next Quarter’s Profit report comes out.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:47 PM
They’re big contributors to the DFL too kathy. In fact, some notable Democrats (Gore, Kerry, Reid, etc.) have invested big in Big Oil…
Thing is, Democrats are in charge now. And hey, look… they’re not doing anything… which, is probably the best policy. Because Democrats will only fuck it up.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:19 AM
[...] I first wrote about Fingerhut's connection to Klobuchar back in May. I want to thank the dedicated reader of Minnesota Democrats Exposed for sending me this information. [...]