McCain Pal Gets 54 Months For Fraud
By Cernig Friday Oct 24, 2008 3:30pm
Raffaello Follieri, perhaps most famous for being Anne Hathaway's ex-boyfriend, has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison this Friday after being pleading guilty to one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering.
Raffaello Follieri, 30, pleaded guilty in September to fraudulently obtaining US$2.4 million by leading investors to believe he had Vatican connections that enabled him to buy the Roman Catholic Church's unwanted US properties at a discount.
..."I have dishonored my family name and embarrassed the church I love," Follieri told Judge John Koeltl in US District Court in Manhattan in a statement in Italian that was translated into English.
"I will never be able to wash away the stain. I hope that someday those hurt by my actions will forgive me," Follieri said before the judge handed down the sentence.
He'll be deported after serving his sentence.
Follieri had good connections to both McCain and Rick Davis, for whom he had promised to "deliver Catholic votes", and was the host of John McCain's 70th birthday party, celebrated onboard the yacht of another dodgy character - a Russian oligarch who pretty much owns the tiny state of Montenegro.
In mid-September The Nation's website published a photo of McCain celebrating his seventieth birthday in Montenegro in August 2006 at a yacht party hosted by convicted Italian felon Raffaello Follieri and his movie-star girlfriend Anne Hathaway. On the same day one of the largest mega-yachts in the world, the Queen K, was moored in the same bay of Kotor. This was where the real party was. The owner of the Queen K was known as "Putin's oligarch": Oleg Deripaska, controlling shareholder of the Russian aluminum giant RusAl, currently listed as the ninth-richest man in the world, with a rap sheet as abundant as his wealth. By mid-2005 Deripaska had already virtually taken control of Montenegro's economy by snapping up its aluminum plant, KAP--which accounts for up to 40 percent of the country's GDP and some 80 percent of its export earnings--in a nontransparent privatization tender strongly criticized by NGO watchdogs, Montenegrin politicians and journalists. The Nation has learned that Deripaska told one of his closest associates that he bought the plant "because Putin encouraged him to do it." The reason: "the Kremlin wanted an area of influence in the Mediterranean."
Deripaska is himself involved in some political scandal right now - involving both a high level Labour Party cabinet minister, Lord Peter Mandelson who was one of Tony Blair's closest advisors and the current shadow chancellor, the Conservative Party's George Osborne. Both McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis have dubious ties to Deripaska too. Other McCain campaign advisers, lobbyists to a man, have their own shady connections.
John McCain keeps saying he's a reformer and a maverick with no time for the incestuous and often shady dealings of the K Street crowd - but his actions speak louder than his words.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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But he wasn't a terrorist!
Now we've got a lot more house cleaning to take care of...
Rove and the Anthrax Killers are still on the loose. And feel free to add to that list as you see fit...
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatter...
1) The missing trillions of dollars in Iraq that Rumsfeld was kind enough to tell us about; 2) what is in Cheney's man-size safe; 3) the cryptic comments made by certain Bush officials following 911; etc, etc.
That was the repub genius. Commit so many crimes so quickly that nobody could keep up with them. The fact that none of these creeps is behind bars is testament to their expertise.
old enough to vote Orang?
Yoo hoo
tick tick
I ask ,is because on another thread Orang poo pooed voting and implied 'more needs to be done'. I won't be fooled into sedition Orang. And for the sake of you are your parents,I'd shut up,if I were You.
Was he appologising for mccain?
We find out his campaign pushed the assault story, McCain's palin around with Liddy, it goes on and on...
I still see dumbasses with McCain/Palin signs in their yards.
Why?
- Liberals are evil
- Liberals raise taxes
- Liberals have no values
- Liberals are baby killers
- Liberals are at fault for everything
- Liberals will take away your guns and your bibles and will force you to have gay sex with everyone and their dogs
This is the result of the Limbaugh factor for how many decades of calling us everything and everything bad.
hetro sex with dogs LMAO
Hetero sex with dogs is okie dokie. It's the gay sex. You betcha!
whooooo hooooo silly me MsJoanne is always right
Your wife did a good job with you. Kudos to her!! (snicker...and I luv my UncaDave!!)
I want to make up "Imbeciles for" stickers, and plaster them across all the McCain/Palin signs I see.
He had "promised to "deliver Catholic votes".
Who was the bigger idiot? McCain, for thinking this guy could actually deliver votes, or those fools who invested their cash on his assurance that the Catholic Church was prepared to take a mark down on real estate sales?
FBI broke into Follieri's safe (in Hathaway's apt) since he was gone forever, and found the letter(s) from Vatican/Curia high-level officials DEMANDING that he STOPS using ANY Vatican/Catholic Church references as he was a crook in their eyes.
This nailed him, since the letters were 2-3 years old when seized - i.e. he was acting with PREMEDITATION to extort the funds based on FALSE representation.
McCain's close relationship with this crook makes Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko combined small potatoes by comparison indeed. Will the Corporate Media pick up on it?
I won't hold my breath.
What happened with the Ted Stevens trial? Last I heard it was derailed for the moment.
the jury needed a break.
One juror's father died but the prosecution was trying to get one of the alternates in in that juror's place. That was the last I heard.
if this one'll be on his tombstone. At the rate McCain's going that tombstone will have to rival Mt Rushmore.
here's His Tombstone. He fucked up. Became a senator. Then REALLY fucked up.
His soul, what was left of it is deeper than 6 feet down.
anne hathaway is a hottie.
I watched Get Smart on my return flight from Germany but couldn't get the above picture out of my mind (McCain boarding the boat of her ex BF). Every time she was on screen I found myself scrunching my nose.
McCains relations to international felons and Russian criminals seems very sinister and evil. Here is where the Lee Harvey Oswald ideas begin to fester. McCains relationships are deeply connected to villans and we need to protect America. Be aware. McCain has, like the many in power, given up on American values. He's all talk. Just words. Who, and what was Jim Hensley?
We don't need any reasons not to vote for McCain. Be Gone.
Didn't Hensley do time for the mob or something and kept his mouth shut and was rewarded with a beer distributorship?
Jim Hensley: convicted BOOTLEGGER.
One can only speculate how a convicted felon who falsified federal liquor records managed to obtain a state and federal wholesale liquor license within a few years of his 1949 conviction and 1953 indictment."...
Two excellent articles w/chrono info, from the 'source'
1. Haunted by Spirits
McCain won -- one could say bought -- his first election to the House of Representatives in 1982 with lavish sums of Hensley beer money. BUDWISER.
John McCain benefits from James Hensley's money.
James Hensley benefits from John McCain's political power.
Senator McCain's personal wealth is tied completely to his wife.
And Cindy McCain remains beholden to her father.
McCain has used the flag -- in the form of his POW status and expertise on foreign affairs -- to deflect attention from such matters as his family's beer interests.
The federal permit was designed to keep people such as Hensley out of the liquor business. One can only speculate how a convicted felon who falsified federal liquor records managed to obtain a state and federal wholesale liquor license within a few years of his 1949 conviction and 1953 indictment. But apparently, Hensley did.
It is uncertain how convicted bootlegger James Hensley obtained a federal basic permit. However, it is extremely unlikely that a person with a similar conviction today would get a federal liquor license, says Allison Stevens, ATF Phoenix Area supervisor.
Cindy drives a Suburban with the license plate "Ms Bud."
... John McCain, standing on the Republican party podium for the debates paid for by the King of Beers. At his side will be Ms. Bud.
Back home in Phoenix, beer baron James Willis Hensley might smile about the fabulous return on his political investment
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-02-17/new...
Haunted by Spirits
John McCain derived his wealth from his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, whose father started his road to riches as a bootlegger.As a politician, the senator has remained beholden to the liquor industry and the family business
By John Dougherty, Amy Silverman
Published on February 17, 2000
Would United States Senator John McCain be a presidential contender if it weren't for his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, heiress to the Hensley liquor fortune?
It's doubtful. The senator's wife and -- more important -- his father-in-law, James Willis Hensley, are very wealthy people.
...cont ...
.
2. Hensley Beer paid Cindy's 'charity' employee salaries..
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1994-09-08/new...
Opiate for the Mrs.
When laws are broken, somebody's got to be punished. In the case of Cindy McCain, that somebody is Tom Gosinski
By Amy Silverman, Jeremy Voas
Published on September 08, 1994
You're U.S. Senator John McCain, and you've got a big problem. Your wife, Cindy, was addicted to prescription painkillers. She stole pills from a medical-aid charity she heads and she used the names of unsuspecting employees to get prescriptions. ""...cont
the deeper the connections go. Sane Americans should be amazed at the depth of corruption, it's utterly disgusting.
NObody here needs a reason,anymore. BeGone Trolls.
Possible brain damage?
Again....Manchurian Candidate anyone?
I have been saying the same thing for months. 5 1/2 years in a POW camp where he earned the nickname, "Songbird."
Isn't it wonderful? Look at these trolls all around and it's beginning to be a sound Isn't It wonderful? Apologies to Stevie w.
Can you say greedy terrorist? McCain is so 2-faced he's palled around with the likes of Jack Abrahoff and Bob Ney, supported the corrupt Wall Street CEOs, the list goes on. He's ruined what little reputation he had and history will remember him along the same line as they do George W.
before,CowBoy? Or are You just lost?
I wonder if this will get half the attention Ayers has gotten.
Of course, McCain never "vets" anyone he deals with. Otherwise he would find out how crooked they are. Watch him play dumb, as usual, if and when this story gets any legs.
I think he did well by his church. The guy is a hypocrite and so is his religion. Good job, bub.
woooooo.
McCain apparently had a secret meeting in 1985 with Chilean dictator Pinochet without pre-conditions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dinges/mcc...
The list just keeps growing and growing and growing....
Can someone please do an Energizer Bunny ad with McCain's head on the darn thing with a scrolling list of all the slime that keeps oozing from his campaign? At least I might chuckle about it all.
Ohhhhh The Humanity.
...my number is:
Hopefully, he bought the wrong presidential candidate and that pardon won't be forthcoming.
Like all such people, religious nuts and/or republicans, they only feel regret and shame after they get caught, not when they're doing it. If he were truly sorry, he would have not made illegal deals or would have turned himself in instead of being hunted down like a dog.
Fraud worked very well for McCain with his Keating dealings so why wouldn't he continue with what's profitable for John McCain?
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