The patience of the federal bankruptcy trustee for Fair Finance is running out on Indiana politicians who continue to thumb their noses at his demands they return campaign contributions indicted Ponzi scheme operator Tim Durham lavished on them from the more than $200 million he defrauded out of Ohio investors. Indiana's top law enforcement official, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, and the former most powerful prosecutor in the state, Carl Brizzi, are among the politicians who have so far rebuffed the trustee's efforts to recoup the money from them. The trustee
plans to file suit against Brizzi for $192,000 his campaign committee received. According to his latest campaign finance reports, his committee still holds more than $200,000. WRTV contacted Brizzi and this is the flippant response they received from him:
"This is the biggest bunch of revisionist history I've ever seen. There was no indication that or hint that the money came from an inappropriate source," he said. "It was spent in good faith. I have identified a couple thousand dollars that could be connected to donations from Fair Finance."
It's unbelievable that WIBC-FM continues to allow this man to host his Crime Beat radio show and WISH-TV has him under contract as a legal expert when he demonstrated during his eight years as county prosecutor and to this day just how little regard for the law he has. Zoeller apparently won't return the $22,000 he pocketed from Durham until he is assured the money will go to the investors knowing full well that the trustee's expenses, which are very high in a complicated case like this one, must first be paid before any money can be distributed to the investors according to WRTV's Rafael Sanchez. He details sums the trustee laid out in letters to other committees demanding repayment:
The letters ask for repayment of donations made since February 2006, four years before the company was forced into bankruptcy because of angry investors. The trustee’s office said it is using the principle of "fraudulent transfer" to collect the money it contends Durham owed to Fair Finance.
Specifically, the Greater Indianapolis Republican Finance Committee was asked to repay $52,943. The trustee wants $5,000 from the Marion County Republican Central Committee, $92,500 from the Indiana Republican State Committee, $58,580 from the House Republican Campaign Committee, $22,000 from Zoeller for Attorney General and $10,000 from the Committee to Elect Brian Bosma.
The trustee’s office said it sent each group a letter on June 10, 2010, but never heard back from the above-named organizations, and that this week’s letter is a last-chance warning to discuss repayment before legal action.
GIRFCO and Brizzi are especially vulnerable given the direct role Durham played in their campaign committees in his role as finance chairman for the respective committees. Brizzi was closer to Durham than any of the politicians who received money from him. He often traveled and partied with him. Sen. Mike Delph is the only politician who has returned contributions to the trustee to date, and he did so without being prompted by a letter from the trustee. Former Marion Co. Sheriff candidate Tim Motsinger also returned approximately $200,000 his campaign committee indicated Durham had loaned to his committee at the same time he ended his campaign.
