CRIMENETDAILY

Top Democrat fundraiser sentenced to 12
years

Backer of Hillary, Obama, Kerry heads to prison for bank fraud

Posted: July 15, 2010

© 2010 WorldNetDaily   http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=179553

Hassan Nemazee, a multimillionaire Iranian-American investment banker
and top Democratic Party fundraiser, was sentenced today to 12 years in federal
prison for bank fraud.

Nemazee,
60, served as the national finance chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2008
presidential campaign before raising more than $500,000 for Barack Obama's
campaign.

In
2004, Nemazee was New York finance chairman for Sen. John Kerry's presidential
campaign, a position in which he raised about $500,000 in bundled campaign contributions.

Kerry's
2004 presidential campaign website listed Nemazee as being in the top tier of
Kerry's contributors nationwide. Nemazee was one of some 60 people credited
with raising $100,000 or more for the campaign, an amount that earned him the
designation of vice chairman to Kerry's campaign.

In
his 2005 book "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and
American Politicians," WND senior staff reporter and columnist Jerome R.
Corsi targeted Nemazee for his alleged history of pushing to normalize
diplomatic relationships with the theocratic regime ruling Iran, despite Iran's
pursuit of a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

On
Oct. 18, 2004, Corsi attended a deposition in New York City in which Nemazee
was questioned under oath by legal counsel for Aryo Pirouznia, the leader of
the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran.

Nemazee
had sued Pirouznia in a $10 million defamation suit that charged Pirouznia had
defamed him by calling him an agent of the religious clerics ruling Iran.

According
to Corsi's book, Pirouznia had charged that Nemazee was utilizing his
resources, including investment funds Nemazee managed in Nemazee Capital Corp.,
to further the interests of the religious rulers in Tehran in the formation of
U.S. foreign policy toward Iran.

The
lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court.

On
Sept. 30, 2004, in the campaign's first nationally televised presidential
candidate debate with President George W. Bush, Democratic Party nominee Kerry
said the United States should provide nuclear fuel to Iran to test them,
"to see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful
purposes."

Kerry's
plan was basically the same one the Clinton administration had tried with North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il in 1994 under an "Agreed Framework" in
which the U.S. handed over to Pyongyang enough nuclear fuel to run two nuclear
power plants.

After
the delivery of the nuclear fuel by the Clinton administration, Kim Jong-Il
withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and proceeded to make nuclear
warheads for North Korea's Nodong missiles.

Nemazee
had reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in March, having admitted to
three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud, in a scheme in which he
forged documents and created false account statements in applying for new bank
loans to pay off older bank loans.

U.S.
Attorney Prett Bharara in New York City and FBI investigators told Dow Jones
Newswires that the 59-year-old Namazee applied for the Citibank loans for Nemazee
Capital Corp., of which he is chairman and chief executive, by giving Citibank
"numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts
in Nemazee's name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of
millions of dollars."

According
to the criminal
complaint released by Bharara, the accounts Nemazee submitted in the loan
documentation were "fraudulent and forged" and "either never
existed or had been closed years before Nemazee submitted the documents
referencing those accounts."

The
criminal complaint alleged Nemazee's fraudulent scheme began in December 2006,
when he first approached Citibank to borrow $25 million, until 2009 when he
raised the sum to $80 million.

In
1998, President Clinton nominated Nemazee to be ambassador to Argentina but
later withdrew the nomination after Forbes
magazine published an extremely damaging review of Nemazee's business career.

On
May 3, 1999, Forbes wrote, "Over the past four years Nemazee and his
family have given more than $150,000 to Democratic politicians and the DNC. Six
of Nemazee's friends and relatives have given $10,000 apiece – the
maximum allowable per year – to Bill Clinton's legal defense fund."