Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Cooper Refuses to Disclose "Charity" Records

Lawyers for "whistleblower" Frank Foy are asking that former deputy Bill Richardson campaign manager Amanda Cooper be held in contempt of court.

In a motion filed yesterday in state district court, Foy claims that Cooper did not turn over records of the Moving America Forward Foundation, which were subpoenaed in February. (Read Kate Nash's original story HERE.)

MAFF, established by Richardson in 2004, was set up with the stated goal of encouraging minority voting. The foundation collected more than $1.7 million, but by law doesn't have to disclose names of contributors.

In case you've lost track in the scandal jungle, Foy, a former investment officer with the state Education Retirement Board, claims that the ERB as well as the State Investment Council was pressured by former Richardson chief of staff and campaign manager Dave Contarino to invest with Vanderbilt Financial, a Chicago-based company.

In a response to that subpoena Cooper's lawyer says (correctly) that MAFF no longer exists, that producing the records would be an "undue burden" for Cooper and that the documents have no relevance to Foy's suit.

However, Foy's lawyer Victor Marshall says in yesterday's motion points out that Anthony Correra was a MAFF director and his son Marc Correra shared in $22 million in finders fees from Vanderbilt for landing investment deals with the Educational Retirement Board and the State Investment Council.

I haven't tried contacting Cooper yet today. Since the beginning of the year she has not returned calls from me. When I ran into her at a Democratic Party function a few weeks ago she told me there are some things she can't talk about. I suspect this might be one of them.

UPDATE: Here's the motion and other documents related to it.

Motion for Contempt & Enforcement of Subpoena Duces Tecum as FILED 6.16.09

FURTHER UPDATE: Way way down in the documents in the above link is a letter from Cooper's lawyer saying , "We are prepared to produce an affidavit from Ms. Cooper confirming that none of the defendants in the case nor any person or entity mentioned in the complaint ever made any contribution to MAFF."

Full disclosure: Lawyer Marshall has worked for The New Mexican.