Thursday, May 2, 2013

Liu buddies convicted

From DNA Info:

A former aide and a fundraiser for City Comptroller John Liu were both found guilty in federal court on Thursday of helping to concoct a straw-donor scheme to benefit Liu's campaign, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

Donor Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan, 47, and former Liu campaign treasurer Jia “Jenny” Hou, 26, were accused of skirting campaign finance limits and defrauding the city of matching funds by setting up "straw donors" to Liu's campaign.

Those straw donors allegedly gave money in groups to Liu's campaign and were reimbursed at a later date by the real donors.

“As the jury found, Jia Hou and Oliver Pan stuck a knife into the heart of New York City’s campaign finance law by violating the prohibition against illegal campaign contributions, all to corruptly advantage the campaign of a candidate for citywide office," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a press release.

"Cases like this give the people of New York yet another reason to be troubled by the electoral process, and they have a right to demand fair, open, and honest elections untainted by cynical subversion of campaign finance laws."

Pan was ultimately found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and attempted wire fraud, and Hou was found guilty of attempted wire fraud, making false statements and obstruction of justice. She was found not guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Pan now faces a maximum of 40 years in prison, and Hou faces up to 45 years, according to a spokeswoman from Bharara's office.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

So,Preety Boy made the case that was already set up for him by his billionaire backer.Hardly a stretch to indict and convict that phony ham sandwich.Now for the task requiring cojones,which you,sir,esq.,apparently lack- take down the thieving carpetbagger.Tough sell, but ultimtely triomphant (at least in the moral sense) move for yo/

Anonymous said...

Dear John,

TICK....

TICK....

TICK....

Jon Torodash said...

Liu made the point confidently at almost every forum I heard about him attending that the charges made against his campaign would not stick, even though the other candidates weren't really bringing it up.

Anon #1: federal investigations are not trivial whodunits. Timing can be very important if the charges are going to stick. It's not necessarily lack of resolve that slows things down. (Read "City for Sale" sometime about how Giuliani nailed Manes and his henchmen in the PVB scandal for an illustrative example.) Best be patient for now. The election isn't tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Gee John Liu told you that the charges wouldn't stick?

I am so sad to learn that the son of a convicted bank thief might be a liar.

Stunning.

Anonymous said...

Get your prison suit ready Johnny boy.

Wait until Ollie and Jenny roll over on you, in exchange for shortening their jail time.

The axe is about to fall.

The notorious Huang-Liu family is about to lose a member.

Bubba awaits his new Asian cellmate bitch.
How about a lube job, Mr. Comptroller?

Anonymous said...

He can join up with Tommy Huang.

Word is that Tommy has in fact left the country.

There is no extradiction treaty with their country.

Anonymous said...

So, Ackerman leaves office...
and his longtime buddy, Huang, leaves the country?

Nice!

Maybe Gary and Tommy are whooping it up on Ackerman's houseboat.

"Weigh anchor...and head for Taiwan".