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By Larry Shook |
8/30/2007 |
The "Top Ten" reasons for RPS criminal indictments have been sent to federal investigators by former councilwoman and Camas senior editor.
FOLLOWING UP ON AN EARLIER DEMAND for a criminal investigation into River Park Square, former City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers and Camas Senior Editor Tim Connor yesterday sent yet another letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Securities & Exchange Commission. In it they laid out "what we regard as the ten clearest examples of fraudulent omissions and misrepresentations made to securities buyers."
Rodgers says the evidence compiled by her and Connor gives her the highest confidence she has had in the more than 10 years she has investigated River Park Square that "justice will be done."
In yesterday's letter, Rodgers and Connor wrote, "The evidence is exhaustive. River Park Square was a sophisticated white collar crime involving conspiracy, money laundering, appraisal fraud and extensive public corruption."
Among the evidence of public corruption contained in the material they have recently submitted to the federal government is a Spokesman-Review article raising the question of whether the newspaper served as an instrument of fraud in the River Park Square scandal.
"U.S. attorney 'perfect choice,'" read the headline of a January 17, 2002 Spokesman-Review story lauding James A. McDevitt's appointment to the post of U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington. That article ran five months after the IRS issued a report finding that the RPS bond transaction McDevitt worked on while he was an attorney for Preston Gates & Ellis violated federal tax law. (See "McDevitt's Fingerprints.")
The controversial role of McDevitt's old law firm was well known by then. (See the September 15, 2001 Camas story, "IRS Rules Against RPS Bonds.")
Even so, no mention was made of McDevitt's RPS history in the Spokesman-Review story. That story was written by Bill Morlin, the paper's top investigative and most senior reporter.
Other evidence of public corruption contained in the new Rodgers/Connor material is a December 4, 1996 memo from Prudential Securities investment banker John C. Moore showing that the RPS developer and City of Spokane had shopped for an investment rating for the RPS bonds. Plaintiffs in the securities fraud case said they weren't told of this shopping trip and that they should have been. In a November 12, 1998 Wall Street Journal article, developer Betsy Cowles and city bond counsel Roy Koegen denied that bond purchasers were misled about this matter. The Moore memo included by Rodgers and Connor in their latest correspondence suggests otherwise.
"We think the evidence warrants multiple indictments," write Rodgers and Connor. They request a clear public explanation if indictments are not issued.
"At the appropriate time once the federal investigations get underway, the two of us would like to meet with federal investigators and present more of the evidence we've compiled. Please consider this letter a formal request for that meeting."
Click here to read the Rodgers/Connor "Top 10" material.
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