Elliott Broidy, Pension Fraud and Los Angeles

If you select the post tag which says "Pension Fraud", you will find many posts which reference Mr. Broidy. To make the story short, Mr. Broidy sat on public pension boards and later would act as a "placement agent" and he was also the Chairman of Markstone Capital (and one of the co-founders). Mr. Broidy pled guilty to bribing government officials to get investments in his company and others. Mr. Broidy escaped a lengthy sentence because he cooperated with prosecution. Fair enough, he got whatever sentence he got; but, I just saw a website, here is a link. Broidy Capital Management. Apparently, he is back in Los Angeles and back in business.

We now have this, it is from Bloomberg BusinessWeek - Elliott Broidy CPA. They gave glowing information regarding Mr. Broidy; but, failed to mention his pleading guilty. How can this man still be a CPA? How can this man be allowed to invest other people's money? Write a bogus check and get caught, guess what, you cannot get bonded to handle money again.

I hope you read his "profile" from Bloomberg. If you read it, you will understand why he is not in jail and allowed to still do investments? Now, here is this from Daily Politics - Investor Elliott Broidy Given Wrist Slap For Role In Pension Fund Scandal. I love these two quotes from the article, "The high-powered Israeli investor who pleaded guilty to giving $1 million in bribes to four top state pension fund officials — including disgraced ex-controller Alan Hevesi — got off with a slap on the wrist." and "In exchange for cooperation that helped land Hevesi behind bars, Broidy this week was able to withdraw his felony plea and instead admit to a misdemeanor." He personally had to pay $18 million back.

Now here is what is really disturbing, I have been looking to see what this man's sentence was a could not find any in the mainstream media. If you think public pensions are too generous, consider the fact of how much of the money is flat out stolen from the funds. In New York, $170 million dollars was paid in fines by over a dozen companies. Theft of public pensions is why they are in trouble, that and the failure of government to make timely contributions.

I have an even better example. In the City of Bell, in California, a number of councilpersons and the City Administrator have all been charged with stealing. The City Administrator was going to receive, and may yet, one of the biggest pension payouts in state history. Currently, they are attempting to limit his pension payout. The guy is probably going to jail. He did not steal $170 million dollars. I have no respect for the man; but, should you get off easier because you stole more?

Donald Trump once said something that was very true, he said if you owed someone a thousand dollars it was your problem; but, if you owed them $100 million it was there problem, at least it was something very close to that. Here is my biggest problem with all of this, Mr. Broidy made a lot of money; but, his investments were in Israeli companies. Bribing government officials in the United States in order to make investments in foreign countries sounds like treason to me. It certainly does not sound like a misdemeanor deserving of no prison time.

I want to know why the story of Mr. Broidy has had so little coverage in the local media. I want to know why the media doesn't care to talk about how much is being stolen from public pensions. How about this, why didn't CalPers and the Los Angeles pension funds do a full and complete investigation into Mr. Broidy's activities with them? We are told to follow the money, why didn't the Los Angeles Times provide a listing of where all the public pension investments went under Mr. Broidy? I would think that tax payers might want to know that. Here is another question, why haven't these same organizations told us what the total return was on investments made to CIM Group? I have lots more questions. Why didn't anyone in the mainstream media ask these questions?

Have a great night and wonderful weekengs.