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Who Is Hsu?

August 31, 2007

Who’s on first? Oops, that’s the wrong lead line.

San Mateo County Superior Court Judge H. James Ellis ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and held on $2 million bond. A bail hearing was scheduled for Sept. 5, at which the judge will consider reducing his bail to $1 million. Hey, that shouldn’t be a problem for Hillary or Bill to raise for who? Hsu appeared in court accompanied by a lawyer and publicist, both of whom declined to say whether the New York apparel executive would immediately post bail. A warrant was issued for his arrest after he skipped the sentencing for a 1991 grand theft charge. You’ve heard how justice grinds slowly right? Sixteen years later he’s now in jail.

Who Wants Cheaper Auto Insurance?

Investigators believe that after Mr. Hsu skipped his court appearance in 1992, he went to his native Hong Kong and then continued working in the garment trade. At some point, Mr. Hsu, a naturalized American citizen, returned to New York and in 2003 made the first of what became hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic campaigns around the nation.

People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.

At a new loft-style residential condominium in SoHo that was also listed as an address for one of his companies, an employee there said that he had never seen or heard of Mr. Hsu. Another company was listed at a condo that Mr. Hsu had sublet in an elegant residential tower in Midtown Manhattan just off Fifth Avenue, but an employee there said Mr. Hsu moved out two years ago, after having lived there for five years. The employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about residents, said he recalled that Mr. Hsu had received a lot of mail from the Democratic Party.

Hsu became a top donor to numerous Democratic candidates and was a fundraiser for presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also had contributed to Sen. Barack Obama’s past Senate campaign and his political action committee.

On Friday, Hsu, who has an apparel business in New York, also resigned from the board of trustees of The New School and from the board of governors of The New School’s Eugene Lang College. The college received a federal appropriation secured by Clinton last year, but a spokesman for the school said Hsu was not involved in seeking money for the school.

Sure! :-)

After reports surfaced this week of Hsu’s fugitive status in California, Clinton joined other candidates in returning thousands of dollars he raised, but the allegations distracted her campaign just as it prepared to ramp up for the intense post-Labor Day stretch. The campaign announced Wednesday it would return $23,000 in contributions that Hsu made to her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to HillPac.

And what about the other millions Hill?

Hillary Clinton Thursday defended her campaign’s efforts to investigate the backgrounds of its fundraisers after it was disclosed that one of her top money-raisers is wanted on a felony fraud charge in California.
Clinton also sidestepped questions of whether she would return the money the fundraiser, Norman Hsu, brought in, saying the campaign would analyze the contributions and ”take action if that’s warranted.”

Isn’t politics a beautiful thing? :-(

Written by Ernie · Filed Under Daily Commentary 

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