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Frank Foy, left, has alleged a pay-to-play scheme involving state investments. His attorney Victor Marshall, is seated to the right. (File photo)
A lawyer for whistleblower Frank Foy has asked a state judge to hold Gov. Bill Richardson’s former deputy presidential campaign chair in contempt of court.
At the heart of a motion filed Tuesday in First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe is a contention by attorney Victor Marshall that Amanda Cooper hasn’t turned over records related to the Moving America Forward Foundation that were subpoenaed in February.
But the foundation’s attorney criticized Marshall’s motion as nothing more than a way to generate headlines.
“This is not a valid motion but an irresponsible publicity stunt,” Joseph Sandler, the foundation’s attorney, said Wednesday in an e-mail. He went on to add that Marshall sent the motion to the media but not to Cooper or to him.
Cooper, in addition to helping to head up Richardson’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, also was executive director for the Moving America Forward Foundation. She also is U.S. Sen. Tom Udall’s daughter.
The motion that Marshall filed Tuesday is part of Foy’s 26-page lawsuit filed last year in which he alleged a pay-to-play culture at the state agencies responsible for investing New Mexico taxpayer money. Foy has named a long list of defendants, including several big banks and financial services companies as well as Dave Contarino, Richardson’s former chief of staff, and Bruce Malott, the chair of the Educational Retirement Board.
The Moving America Forward Foundation is not listed as a defendant. Rather, as Marshall writes in the latest motion, he believes the foundation was a “vehicle of conduit for making kickbacks.” Marshall sought documents from the foundation and from Cooper in the subpoena earlier this year.
The foundation took in close to $1.7 million in charitable contributions, according to published reports.
Foundation’s Correra connection
The Moving America Forward Foundation, a nonprofit started several years ago, has generated its own headlines in recent months.
The nonprofit was associated with, but separate from, a similarly named political action committee now at the center of a federal probe into pay-to-play allegations involving the New Mexico Finance Authority and a California firm. Federal investigators are looking into more than $100,000 in contributions the firm gave to the Moving America Forward and Si Se Puede! Boston 2004 political committees.
Like the Moving America Forward political committee, the foundation was meant to promote Hispanic and Native American voter registration. But it operated as a public charity and as such flew under the public’s radar.
It is unclear how the foundation fits into the federal investigation that features the Moving America Forward and Si Se Puede political committees, if at all.
But among the board members of the foundation was Anthony Correra, a Richardson friend and fundraiser, Marshall notes in Tuesday’s motion.
Correra’s son, Marc, has figured as a player in an investment deal at the heart of Foy’s lawsuit.
The younger Correra has shared in the $16 million or so in finders’ fees as a third-party marketer on dozens of state investment deals involving the State Investment Council and Educational Retirement Board over the past half-dozen years.
One of those deals for which the younger Correra shared in $2 million in fees involved Chicago-based Vanderbilt Financial Trust, according to an Educational Retirement Board document. The deal resulted in the state losing its $90 million investment.
Foy, a former investment officer at the Educational Retirement Board, has alleged in his whistleblower suit that he felt pressure to invest $40 million of the education retirement board’s money in the Vanderbilt Financial Trust fund.
A back and forth on the subpoena
The subpoena Marshall filed in February sought documents from the Moving America Forward Foundation related to its management, including minutes of meetings. It also sought any contributions and expenses the foundation made; records related to any officer, employee, board member of the foundation; and documents pertaining to any contracts the foundation had that were over $1,000 in value.
In the motion, Marshall argues that “instead of complying with the subpoena, or filing an objection with this Court, Cooper and MAFF sent plaintiffs’ counsel an evasive, obfuscatory, and dilatory letter.”
The foundation has argued for months that it shouldn’t have to turn over the records sought by the subpoena.
Sandler responded to Marshall’s subpoena in February (it’s below the motion and Marshall’s subpoena) by saying that turning over the records wasn’t feasible. First, Sandler noted, the foundation no longer existed. And in the event that Cooper still had records in her possession, turning them over would amount to an undue burden, Sandler added.
Sandler also expressed the belief that the records that Marshall sought through the subpoena had no relationship to the suit.
Sandler offered in a Feb. 20 letter to have Cooper sign an affidavit confirming “that none of the defendants in (Foy’s) case, nor any person or entity mentioned in the Complaint, ever made any contribution” to the Moving America Forward Foundation.”
It is a contention Sandler made again Wednesday.
“Not surprisingly, Mr. Marshall never responded to my letter of February 20 and failed to send a copy of this latest ‘Motion’ to either Ms. Cooper or myself. But of course he did distribute copies of his motion to the press,” Sandler wrote in his e-mail.
