Saturday, February 25, 2012

Walkergate: What's In His Wallet?

There's been something nagging at me for a while now, and really piqued my curiosity with the post I wrote last night: Just how are some of the Walkergate defendants paying for things?

Kelly Rindfleisch has retained the services of Franklyn Gimbel, who is a high profile attorney who assuredly doesn't come cheap. Yet in 2010, Rindfleisch had only made $47,873 from Milwaukee County and few thousand from the campaign work. Unless her consulting business really took off with exceptional success, Gimbel must be pretty hard to afford.

Even more curious is Tim Russell's case.

Russell was fired from Milwaukee County at the end of 2010, and as far as anyone has reported, he was not working since then. He does have his realty business, but one would have to wonder how successful a year he had with sales bouncing all over and when a sale did happen, it was usually at a much lower cost. As a sign of what looked like he might be having financial difficulties, he allowed his Milwaukee home to be foreclosed on:
But what is a bit odd about this article is that, towards the bottom as they give an abbreviated recounting of recent events, they include this non sequitur:
Authorities took Wink's work computer and executed a search warrant on her home. They also took a work computer from Tim Russell, a longtime Walker ally who was county housing director.

Russell recently lost his west side house to foreclosure.

He had taken out a mortgage for $184,000 with a 9.7% interest rate in 2003 for his house on N. 49th St. He was sued by his bank in July 2010 for defaulting on the loan.

At first, Russell mounted an aggressive defense. But he reversed course earlier this year, agreeing to give up the house. Last month, a Milwaukee County judge entered a judgment against Russell. The house is expected to be sold at a sheriff's sale soon.
I'm not sure what that has to do with the rest of the article, unless they are trying to infer he lost the home because of legal costs. But even that wouldn't make much sense, since Russell was already living in Sun Prairie long before any of that happened.

What would be interesting to know is why a person with an apparently successful business in Milwaukee would move to a place more than an hour away from said business. This is especially true when one considers gas prices and that he apparently was having money problems from legal costs and/or losing his job with the county after Walker left him high and dry.
It sure looks like he might be having money problems, doesn't it?

Yet Russell has retained the services of not just one, but two, attorneys. One of course is the award winning Michael Maistelman, one of the best lawyers in the state, who doesn't come cheap either. But besides Maistelman, Russell also has retained attorney Andrew Franklin. I can't say I know anything about Attorney Franklin, but it would not be a large leap of logic to say that Russell is spending up to $500 an hour for these to gentlemen to defend him.

So where is he getting that kind of cash?

17 comments:

  1. Haven't ya heard? They work on spec!

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  2. Some U.S. President went after some overseas banking accounts where rich people were hiding their money.

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  3. Nor have we heard a word about anyone, Walker included, setting up any kind of legal defense fund.

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    1. It was all done on the DL, no doubt. When you have deep-pocketed benefactors, there's no need to publicize the legal defense funds for your underlings who've got enough dirt on you to end your political career and maybe even put you in jail.

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  4. Ok, gotta say, who has a mortgage with a 9.7% interest rate. Hasn't this guy heard of refinancing, or some of those special deals that these types of people usually get.

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    1. He was a housing guy in a Walker administration. How savvy could he have been?

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    2. Walker is tied in with realty interests as his former Chief of Staff Jim Villa currently serves on the CARW board. Jim Villa also ran the B&B were Ms Rindfleish claimed residence during her employ at Milwaukee County. Housing guys carry more clout than you might expect in Walker's world.

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  5. Criminal Defense Attorneys typically want a huge chunk of money up-front, as it is notoriously difficult to collect fees from someone once they are in prison.

    Since Russell's defense seems to revolve around delaying the trial until after recall elections, and Maistelman claims to represent two former Walker aides, perhaps an audit of the Scottie's Campaign Fund is in order.

    Another source of dough might be Russell's Milwaukee real-estate cronies who may be coughing it up to encourage his discretion on other matters. And of course there is the river of money flowing from the Koch brothers that is sloshing around Wisconsin at the moment. Can 501-C(3) money be legally used to fund a criminal defense? Who cares, right? That's what the Cayman Island accounts are for.

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  6. Excellent question, and I hope that raising it may goad the mainstream media with staff to look into this, acting like watchdogs and not lapdogs. Thanks!

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  7. Both Russell and Walker have attorneys from two different firms. Why?

    In my experience, high profile attorneys don't like to share the limelight with one another, and it doesn't make for a cohesive defense.

    Is one for the state investigation and the other for a possible federal probe? Is there some other reason? I can't figure it out.

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  8. I wouldn't doubt the Koch brothers are funding all of their defense expenses. It would make sense if they've already thrown $700,000 at making sure Walker isn't recalled, that they would spare no expense to keep him out of prison.

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  9. Walker's got 99 problems but a snitch ain't one....thanks to somebody's largesse

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  10. Charity work. Pro bono. Makes you feel good to help the down trodden. Where is the evidence that money changes hands? Wasn't there pro bono work done for a judge, or justice or something like that? Nothing to see here move along...

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    1. Pro bono work is considered a gift and the judge would have violated his code of ethics if it were the case.

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    2. Not quite, Tyler. Pro bono work is considered a gift if there is no gain. Now, explain how Gableman did not gain from not having to pay for his defense.

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    3. Actually, the Gableman case does not involve pro bono publica work...MB&F claims that they gave Gableman a contingency contract. This is not the same as a pro bono.

      I do not think that they would be in business for long if they did much pro bono defense, nor would they be able to offer so many political campaign contributions.

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