CDR Financial Products

“Vincent ‘Smiley’ Gallegos, who ran a state housing agency out of an office next to a used-car lot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, should have known better when he borrowed $27.7 million, the Internal Revenue Service said.”
So begins the second of two articles published today that are the result of months of investigation by Bloomberg’s Elliot [...]

“Career prosecutors concluded that an indictment was not warranted,” after federal prosecutors in New Mexico sent their findings in the Richardson pay to play probe to Washington, D.C., the The Washington Post reports today.

The media has already reported on one connection between New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and the scandal-plagued former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich: Richardson’s re-election campaign gave $20,000 to the campaign of Blagojevich in 2006.

Though at least two other state agencies have publicly released similar documents, the New Mexico Finance Authority is refusing to hand over subpoenas it has been issued in the federal investigation into allegations of pay-to-play in the Richardson administration.

The New Mexico Finance Authority is putting up $16 million of collateral on complex financial transactions at the heart of a federal probe into an alleged pay-to-play scheme, The Associated Press reports. And officials are now wondering if the agency received good advice from outside advisers.
Oops. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez’s administration apparently inked a new [...]

Two of Gov. Bill Richardson’s longtime friends and advisers made headlines last week amid revelations that a federal probe into allegations of pay-to-play politics may reach all the way to the governor’s office. But the bigger story is New Mexico’s chummy political culture in which friendship with the governor and state business can become intertwined.

Contributions from CDR Financial Products and its owner to Gov. Bill Richardson have grabbed the most headlines in recent days. But a new report (pdf) from the National Institute on Money in State Politics shows that CDR and owner David Rubin have spread the money around, giving another $91,000 to Democratic elected officeholders and party [...]

It has been suggested in a news report that New Mexico overpaid CDR Financial Products Inc. for its services on complex financial transactions.
How CDR came by the work it did for the state, as many know by now, is the focus of a federal investigation. Specifically, prosecutors are investigating how a lucrative state contract to [...]

In addition to the inquiry into the state’s financial dealings with CDR Financial Products, the feds, it turns out, are also looking into a 2002 bond sale by the University of New Mexico.
Steve Terrell of The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the feds are “investigating a 2002 bond sale by the University of New [...]

Gov. Bill Richardson, the first casualty of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, walked a familiar path Monday when he gave New Mexico media little notice for a hastily called press conference. But instead of a revelation, or even a bit of news, the reporters gathered had expected, they were served up a heap of warmed-over, day-old news. To an outsider Richardson’s performance might seem strange. But for media who have reported on the investigation, it came as no surprise.

The Obama and Richardson camps are upping the ante in the blame game over the federal investigation that deep-sixed the New Mexico governor’s Cabinet nomination, the Washington Post reports.
One aide to Bill Richardson goes so far as to tell WaPo reporters that it was the Obama team that “missed the boat on it.”
Meanwhile, Steve Terrell of [...]