I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Another money manager with ties to New York and New Mexico state investment scandals has pleaded guilty to bribing state officials in New York in exchange for a $250 million investment from that state’s pension fund, the Albuquerque Journal reports today.
“Elliott Broidy, founder and chairman of Markstone Capital Group, admitted paying nearly $1 million in bribes — some in the form of gifts and expensive international trips — to employees of the New York State Comptroller’s Office to secure an investment from the state pension fund,” investigative reporter Mike Gallagher notes.
Gallagher also reminds readers that in 2004, the New Mexico State Investment Council invested $20 million in Markstone Capital, a Los Angeles firm Broidy founded that specializes in corporate buyouts of privately held companies in Israel.
Broidy is the latest person to plead guilty in an investment scandal in New York that has New Mexico ties. In October, New Mexico’s former investment adviser, Saul Meyer of Aldus Equity pleaded guilty to securities fraud.
In a news release accompanying Meyer plea’s, Meyer admitted that on numerous occasions Aldus recommended proposed investments that were pushed on him by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico, “knowing that these politically-connected individuals or their associates stood to benefit financially or politically from the investments and that the investments were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico.”
Weeks later, Gary Bland resigned as New Mexico’s chief investment officer at the State Investment Council.
Gallagher notes that others have pleaded guilty in the ongoing New York investigation:
Besides Broidy and Meyer, the New York investigation has led to the guilty pleas of Dallas hedge fund manager, Barrett Wissman and California broker Julio Ramirez both of whom had connections to New Mexico investment funds.
