I’ve been ranting about this particular piece of dirt about our awful Senator ever since I heard about it but, not being a real reporter, could do nothing about it but yell and scream. Today, the Hartford Courant does what newspapers do best – report the facts. Here’s what the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee has been up to overseas.
In 1993, Dodd’s close friend, New York bon vivant Edward R. Downe Jr., got a heaping helping of justice when his insider trader scheme caused him to plead guilty to violating tax and securities laws. Downe, who lived at exclusive 25 Sutton Place on the Upper East Side with his then wife, heiress Charlotte Ford, was nabbed setting up foreign accounts to make illegal insider stock trades for himself and some socialite friends. Dodd attended Downe’s sentencing, where the schemer received three years’ probation and 3,000 hours of community service. Downe agreed a year later to pay $11 million to the SEC.
While Downe fought the SEC in 1994 about paying the penalty, Dodd and William Kessinger of Kansas City, Mo., whom Dodd knew through Downe, purchased a house and nearly 10 acres (4 hectares in local parlance) on the island of Inishnee in the affluent Roundtree section of Connemara, in County Galway, Ireland, for $160,000.
Kessinger and Downe have a history as business partners in a Missourireal estate investment company.
Dodd, who says he contributed $12,000 to the purchase price, owned one-third of the house, Kessinger two-thirds. They purchased the property with a two-year mortgage from the seller of the property that was, according to Dodd’s Senate financial disclosures for both 1994 and 1995, between $100,001 and $250,000.
The Irish land registry isn’t open to the public in the manner of the American system. It probably appeared unlikely that anyone would discover the curious appearance of Downe’s nearly illegible signature as the witness to Kessinger’s signing the official transfer document. Downe, convicted, on probation and banned for life from the securities business, described himself as “private investor” on the document and included his New York address.
When Downe agreed to pay $11 million to the SEC in 1994, he claimed he was virtually bankrupt. Six months later, he made $2,000 in contributions to Dodd, again listing his occupation as “private investor.” Must be a lot of loose change in the cushions at 25 Sutton Place, even in a “bankrupt” pauper’s grand apartment.
In 1996, the Irish mortgage needed to be paid, and it was. A new mortgage was obtained, according to Dodd, for the same amount. He has reported collecting rent in ranges from $201 to $15,000 on his Senate ethics filings, though the names of the people who rented are not disclosed. Through 2001, Dodd declared his interest in the Irish property as worth between $50,001 and $100,000.
In 2001, Dodd did the favor of a lifetime for his pal, Downe. The veteran senator circumvented the normal Department of Justice vetting process and got Downe a full pardon from President Bill Clinton on his last day in office. Dodd initiated the pardon request and included in his two-page letter to Clinton the tidbit that he speaks to Downe nearly every day.
Between 1994 and 2004, according to the Central Bank of Ireland, prices of existing homes (as opposed to new ones) nearly quadrupled. But not according to a 2002 bank appraisal that Dodd used in the purchase of Kessinger’s interest.
That year, a year after Dodd obtained a pardon for Downe, Dodd purchased Kessinger’s two-thirds interest in the Irish hideaway for only $127,000, according to Dodd. Irish property records obtained for this story show it as $122,351. That was slightly more than its value eight eventful years before, but much less than what might have been expected given the explosion of Irish real estate prices.
So late night pardons, undervalued property deals and non-disclosure. Sounds like our Dodd, alright. Now if someone will look into that financing, that is rumored to involve Fannie Mae funds (illegal to export out of the country), Dodd will have still more questions to refuse to answer.
