Real Deal: Unanswered Questions About Andrew Cuomo

In 2000, three and a half years after Andrew Cuomo became Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”), I met with a senior staff assistant to the Chairman of one of the appropriations committees for HUD. When I asked what was going on at HUD, the staff assistant said, "HUD is being run as a criminal enterprise." I replied, “I don’t disagree.”

Cuomo’s reign at HUD was not the first time that HUD had been run by a New Yorker with ambitions for higher office. From 1989-1990, I served as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and watched Jack Kemp, a former Congressman from Buffalo, try to balance the politics of getting ahead with the needs of citizens and communities at a federal agency in which special interests had traditionally had the upper hand.

At the beginning of the Clinton Administration in 1993, Kemp was replaced by former San Antonio mayor, Henry Cisneros, who recruited a new team of HUD political appointees, including Andrew Cuomo as Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development.

After leaving HUD in 1990, I had started an investment bank and financial software developer, The Hamilton Securities Group. In September 1993, under Cisneros, Hamilton was hired by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the mortgage insurance arm of HUD, in a competitive bid process to serve as lead financial advisor. Hamilton’s responsibilities included designing and implementing a $10 billion loan sale program between 1994 and 1997 and providing portfolio strategy support for what was then a $400 billion portfolio of mortgage insurance-in-force, mortgages and real estate.1

A few weeks after Clinton’s re-election in November 1996, Cisneros resigned to manage the results of a Department of Justice investigation into his disclosure regarding payments to his former mistress. He was replaced by Andrew Cuomo after an unexpected federal investigation regarding HUD grants removed the Mayor of Seattle from consideration.2 In one short period, the Department of Justice knocked out the Secretary and the leading contender for Secretary, paving the way for Andrew Cuomo.

The following year, Cuomo fired Hamilton in a highly political manner, canceling the loan sales program on the false pretext that HUD could not do loan sales without Hamilton. Creating political air cover for Cuomo’s cancellation were allegations filed by a litigious HUD contractor who was subsequently showered with a generous contract and settlement by HUD under Cuomo. The contractor’s allegations were the basis of a combined HUD Inspector General and Department of Justice investigation which, like the investigation of the Mayor of Seattle, came up empty.

One of the chief beneficiaries of Cuomo’s ascendancy to Secretary and the subsequent cancellation of the loan sales were the developers, owners and managers of apartment buildings that were subsidized by HUD and often financed through FHA and Ginnie Mae. Ginnie Mae is the HUD unit which guarantees securities issued to finance pools of mortgages insured by FHA. Many of these apartment buildings had been originally financed through tax shelter syndications.

The largest HUD subsidized portfolio at the time was the one owned by Insignia, chaired by Andrew Farkas. On September 5, 2006, as Andrew Cuomo was running for the democratic nomination for Attorney General of New York, Wayne Barrett published “Andrew Cuomo’s $2 Million Man” in the Village Voice.3 Barrett reported that Cuomo’s compensation from Farkas’s company, Island Capital, in 2004 and 2005 totaled $1.2 million and that Farkas family members and business associates had donated $800,000 to Cuomo’s campaigns since he left HUD. Barrett describes Cuomo’s role as Secretary of HUD in approving an-out-of-court settlement with Insignia (regarding litigation alleging a HUD subsidy being improperly used to pay kickbacks) shortly before Insignia’s sale to AIMCO (Apartment Investment And Managing Company) in 1998.

With Insignia valuations reflecting the benefits of its settlement of the kickback litigation, the cancellation of the HUD loan sales and related policies increasing the private value of HUD subsidized portfolios, Farkas sold out to AIMCO in 1998 for $910 million4, described by his attorney as a “fantastic price.5”

A question that remains unanswered is whether the price of the Insignia sale to AIMCO in 1998 was simply fantastic or whether --given the pattern of events around it – it was inflated with government resources and decisions arranged in a criminal manner.

This question raises a second question -- whether the $2 million that Farkas and his network have paid to Cuomo and his campaigns since then represent a kickback from the Insignia sale to AIMCO and whether Cuomo’s compensation is simply fantastic or something more.

Andrew Farkas & HUD Landlords

In 1995, HUD officials asked Hamilton to help them define their options related to their portfolio of subsidized apartment buildings. HUD had provided significant amounts of “project-based” subsidies to fund these apartment buildings. A project-based subsidy is one that funds and is attached to a building as opposed to tenant-based vouchers that fund payment of rents by a tenant. Essentially, a project-based subsidy goes to the building owner and manager. A tenant-based voucher can move with the tenant from building to building. Many of the apartment buildings supported by expiring HUD project-based subsidies had been financed with mortgages insured by FHA and enjoyed the financial benefits of a variety of federal tax benefits.

There were a significant number of apartment buildings in the HUD subsidized portfolio that had project-based subsidy contracts expiring during the second half of the 1990’s. Federal decisions as to whether to renew expensive project-based subsidy contracts or instead offer more cost effective tenant vouchers, whether to refinance existing mortgages or auction them if they defaulted and whether or not some partnerships would be subject to recapture of prior tax benefits would have a dramatic impact on the profitability of companies like Insignia. Data supplied by HUD to Hamilton at the time showed that the tenant population in question was primarily women and children with high percentages of elderly and minority. A significant number were drawing on welfare, health care and other federal payments.

As the debate and the budgetary implications of the expiring contracts on HUD- subsidized apartment buildings developed, I received an unexpected call at Hamilton from Andrew Farkas. He explained that it was essential that all subsidies go to the owners of the properties in the form of “project-based” assistance. He said that if the subsidy were used to fund tenant vouchers that the tenants would simply use the voucher to buy drugs (the mechanics of exactly how this would transpire were unclear) and then their children would go homeless. I was so taken aback by his tone that I suggested to him that portraying his tenants as people who were not worthy of government funding might not be the best way to argue his case for project-based subsidy. He seemed quite displeased with my suggestion.

If Farkas was not happy with Hamilton’s advice as lead financial advisor, he was not the only one. It was our job to regularly estimate or quantify the impact of HUD’s decisions on the federal budget and on communities. Our work was identifying the price that HUD was paying to fund projects in ways that served special interests rather than satisfied objective criteria of financial performance regarding government investment and the health of our housing infrastructure and communities. This financial transparency was causing some government leaders to reconsider their options, while others remained committed to politics as usual.

After Insignia, NHP (a non-profit organization providing quality affordable multi-family housing for low and moderate-income families) was the second-largest HUD subsidized owner and manager until it was also purchased by AIMCO. At a dinner of the National Multi-Housing Council in early 1996, NHP’s chairman was clear with me. Renewal of expiring long-term HUD subsidy contracts were important to NHP’s profits. The federal government was morally obligated to subsidize him and other HUD landlords, regardless of the cost to taxpayers or performance for communities relative to more economically sound options. Performance was irrelevant compared to the long-term profits “promised” to HUD insiders. He would not say exactly who had made these “promises.”

In 1996, I took the pricings on the HUD defaulted mortgage portfolio to staff of HUD’s Hope VI public housing construction program. I explained that HUD had substantial single-family inventory in those same communities. Empty single-family homes could be bought and repaired at a fraction of the price of new construction of public housing by private developer. The HUD official said, "but then how would we generate fees for our friends?"

Our estimates at that time indicated that the federal government was spending $55,000 a year for a woman and 1.8 children (on average) to live in HUD-subsidized private housing with welfare and food stamps in high-cost areas in a manner such that they would, and indeed could, never become taxpayers and get off the dole. Our analysis showed that the federal government was spending more per person to fund the HUD-housed poor than the annual average income of the American taxpayer who was being asked to fund the rising cost of the debt issued to pay for this.

HUD was spending $150-250,000 per unit to build Hope VI public housing while HUD-foreclosed homes that could be bought and fixed up for $50,000 were available a block away. We were paying large corporations $35-150 dollars an hour to do things that people who lived in those neighborhoods – given advances in information and telecommunications technology -- could be trained to do. The implications were enormous: theoretically, at least, there was the opportunity, using more accurate place-based information, to place public finances on a sounder footing in which the tax payers' investment returns were positive. The potential savings across the federal budget were in the billions.

As the economics of various choices became clearer, tension emerged between HUD landlords and special interests looking for a new and richer round of “fees for our friends” and a new generation of reformers who saw an opportunity to reinvigorate America’s workforce and communities in the face of globalization and the movement of jobs and pension fund capital to countries with younger, more productive populations.

The HUD landlords were best described by a statement made to me by Dick Ravitch, chairman of the AFL-CIO housing trust and a HUD developer from New York, over dinner at the Jockey Club: "As long as I can get government subsidies, what do I care if people have education or jobs?" Traditional interests were committed to using government subsidies and financing to ignore fundamental issues of productivity. While this would enrich private interests, it would accelerate the issuance of increasing amounts of federal mortgage and Treasury debt, weakening the federal credit and committing future generations to an impossible debt burden.

The reformers were exemplified by the HUD loan sales team who had succeeded in more than doubling the recovery rates on defaulted HUD loans from 35% to 70-90%, generating $2.2 billion of funding for HUD and deficit reduction. Later audits would indicate that these methods were better for communities than HUD’s traditional methods. However, these higher recoveries were coming out of the profits of companies like NHP and Insignia at a time when investors were making windfall profits on privatizations globally. Lower profits on HUD-related properties then multiplied through to a lower value of their stock.

I was pretty sure where Andrew Cuomo stood in all of this. As reported by Lucy Komisar in “Fees for Our Friends”, available on her website, “The Komisar Scoop:6”

Inspector General audit chief Chris Greer was in a meeting with Cuomo and HUD IG Susan Gaffney. Cuomo told them that he was planning to get rid of Fitts and Hamilton Securities. Greer recalled, “It had to do with some audits we were doing. There were proposals that would affect a bunch of folks in New York that had a lot of money and who could help Cuomo. One proposal was called ‘mark to market’ and had to do with the Section 8 [rental subsidies] program. I was managing all the multi-family programs at the time. Cuomo wanted to do away with what we tried to put in place, the ‘mark to market’ program. It would have killed a HUD tax-avoidance program….

Greer pointed out, “If there had been ‘mark to market,’ it would treat the HUD Section 8 program like private mortgages in private industry and market them at their true values. You wouldn’t have inflated subsidies, and you would have had more subsidies to give more people. Or you would save tremendous amounts of money that could be used for other purposes. Billions of dollars. Hamilton was a driver on that along with a couple of other folks in HUD. But Cuomo didn’t do it. Money was wasted on these mortgages, the money that went into the fat cats’ pockets.”

He added, “Cuomo clearly had no use for Austin Fitts. The fights with Fitts were political. Everything Cuomo did was political; he was a totally political animal. He ran the CDP [Community Development Program] block grant in HUD for a long time and fixed the system so awards would be made to places he wanted them made to for political reasons, primarily in New York, because he had his eyes on going back and running for governor.”

Sometime after being told by Greer that Cuomo, still Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development, had indicated that he was planning on getting rid of me and Hamilton, I learned that Cuomo had referred a complaint on the loan sales to the HUD Inspector General. The subsequent investigation was short and found nothing. That’s when John Ervin started to make noise.

John Ervin Targets HUD Loan Sales

John Ervin was the founder of Ervin & Associates, a HUD contractor that was servicing defaulted HUD multifamily mortgages. Ervin’s business was shrinking as the loan sale program sold off the mortgages and HUD no longer needed a contractor to service them. Hired while Kemp was Secretary, Ervin’s relationship with HUD deteriorated during Cisneros’s time until HUD fired Ervin for default related to contract performance.

John Ervin, during his Hamilton Securities deposition. (Video courtesy The Hamilton Securities Group)

In mid-1996 Ervin filed two lawsuits, one against HUD and the other, a qui tam lawsuit7 filed under seal, against Hamilton and several successful loan sale bidders. Both lawsuits alleged corruption in the loan sale program and were accompanied by extensive lobbying of Congress and the Washington press by Ervin. The qui tam investigation was delegated by the Department of Justice to the HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney, continuing until 2001.8

I had been informed by the head of FHA in early 1996 that he ignored a White House request that he not award a new contract to Hamilton. At the time of Ervin’s secret filing against Hamilton in mid-1996, Scott Nordheimer, a multifamily developer active in both assisted housing and Hope VI housing, had informed me at a housing industry dinner that I would be the target of a frame, saying, “Well, we tried to have you fired through the White House but that did not work, so now the big boys have gotten together and [decided] you are going to prison.” Nordheimer was a convicted felon whose associated success in winning HUD development grants during Cuomo’s period at HUD became controversial as tenants with felony records were being evicted from HUD-funded developments.9

In October,1997, with Ervin’s and Gaffney’s efforts creating an environment supportive of “reforming” Cisneros’s financial reforms, Cuomo fired Hamilton for the convenience of the government, using as a pretext a mistake that a subcontractor had made (and which had been reported voluntarily to HUD almost a year before) on two highly profitable and successful loan sales, and withheld payment of $2.2 million owned to Hamilton.

The litigation between Ervin, Hamilton and HUD was finally settled in 2006 after Hamilton’s insistence on trials resulted in Ervin and HUD ending up empty-handed with nothing to show for a decade-long fishing expedition other than the mistake Hamilton had voluntarily reported long before we were fired and which had no cash impact on HUD. Meanwhile, Hamilton had produced evidence indicating foul play by HUD, including an affidavit of a HUD Inspector General auditor who had been pressured to falsify her results and left the agency when she would not.10

So where would Ervin get the money to finance such an operation? In 1997, one reporter who interviewed Ervin at his office reported to me that he had a staff of 17 people working full-time on the litigation and related campaigning. While all the sources of Ervin’s financing remains an unanswered question, we do know that HUD/Ginnie Mae under Cuomo awarded Ervin contracts in 1998 while Ervin was suing HUD.11 As a former Assistant Secretary, I can affirm how unusual it is to give contracts to a contractor who was fired for default, has no special skills and is suing the agency. We also know that HUD agreed to a $2MM settlement with Ervin in 2000 at the end of Cuomo’s tenure at HUD after Ervin’s allegations had been proved false and our attorney was adamant that there was no need for HUD to pay Ervin anything, let alone millions. As Cuomo exited HUD to run unsuccessfully for Governor of New York, I was left to deal with a well-financed Ervin for another five years.

Disappearing Pricing Data

In 1994, Hamilton was retained by NHP to value its multifamily portfolio and related property management business in anticipation of NHP’s selling stock to the public. In the process, Hamilton created a detailed simulation of NHP’s apartment buildings and related tax shelter partnerships and mortgage financings that gave us insight into the impact of various federal policies on the financial value of privately owned HUD- subsidized multifamily portfolios.

The following year, with significant data provided by HUD, we reviewed the impact of various federal policies on the entire HUD-subsidized portfolio. Then, in 1996, we developed, priced and helped HUD sell several portfolios of mortgages collateralized by partially and fully-subsidized HUD apartment buildings. Using this data and extensive publicly available databases, we built a suite of software tools that illuminated the value of HUD portfolios as well as the flows of government investment in places and the land, real estate and other assets it impacted.

Using Hamilton’s pricing infrastructure, it would have been possible in early 1998 to quickly value how much of Insignia’s $910 million sale to AIMCO, agreed to on March 17, 1998, reflected increases in values resulting from Cuomo’s decisions to cancel the loan sales, settle Insignia’s litigation and change expiring contract policies to favor owners. Except for one problem. At the time of our firing by Cuomo in late 1997, HUD’s contracting office had required that HUD data, including publicly available data, be scrubbed from Hamilton’s computers. Then Hamilton’s entire pricing and digital infrastructure was moved under court control the week before Insignia’s sale to AIMCO at the request of HUD’s Inspector General. Many years later, when the court returned control of Hamilton’s inventory, many of the most valuable software tools were mysteriously missing.

Insignia was far from the only company cashing out during this period or the only interest threatened by illumination of government housing and mortgage data and government investment by place. During this time, numerous companies profiting from the large flow of government subsidies, financing and enforcement actions associated with poor people and poor communities, including private prison companies, were doing a brisk business. This was the early stage in the largest housing and mortgage market bubble in history combined with rising prices in the stock market. There were numerous companies and government agencies benefiting from a combination of insider information and the absence of transparency of government investment by place1213

How many others who benefited from the destruction of Hamilton’s software tools and databases have financed Cuomo and his campaigns since he left HUD? This is another question about Andrew Cuomo that has yet to be answered. However, the subsequent decline in HUD finances while Cuomo was Secretary is well documented.

Missing Money

The federal fiscal year for 1999 started in October 1998, the month that AIMCO reported closing its purchase of Insignia and HUD engineered Ginnie Mae contracts to John Ervin, providing $800,000 in contract payments to Ervin over the next two years.

HUD failed to produce audited financial statements that year. Its opening balance from fiscal 1998 required undocumentable adjustments of $17 billion. To force the books to balance in 1999 required $59 billion in undocumentable adjustments. 14For its audit in 2000, Cuomo’s last year in office, HUD declined to make public the amount of undocumentable adjustments required to balance the books.15

HUD’s inability to produce audited financial statements in 1999 was attributed to HUDCAPS, a system installed and operated with the help of AMS, a contractor who had been paid $206 million since 1993. In contrast to Cuomo’s treatment of Hamilton, AMS was not fired, nor were payments due AMS withheld. Research to date shows no record of AMS or its employees being investigated as a result of the HUDCAPs failures and the extraordinary level of undocumentable adjustments to HUD’s books.

Not surprisingly, HUD’s rental assistance programs remained on the high-risk list maintained by the Congressional auditor, the General Accounting Office, which is now called the General Accountability Office (GAO).16

These events raise another disturbing question about Andrew Cuomo. Why did HUD finances melt down under Cuomo’s leadership and what, if anything, does that have to do with the billions flowing to large HUD landlords from the government and the stock market, and the millions now flowing back to Andrew Cuomo and his campaigns years later?

The Heart of the Matter

In 1997, members of my team working with HUD (now led by Cuomo) asked me to authorize Hamilton helping HUD to prepare its next budget using assumptions on the multifamily portfolio that were known to be false. For example, we were to presume that HUD’s apartment portfolio would not be impacted by welfare reform legislation that had been enacted the year before. As federal data indicated that high concentrations of tenants in privately-owned HUD-subsidized housing in large urban areas were getting federal welfare and/or food stamp subsidies, this made no sense. Our assessment was that the combined assumptions that HUD wished to use would make it easier for private owners to displace tenants in a way that would leave the tenants out in the cold without vouchers, while appropriations were preserved to fund project-based subsidies for HUD landlords.

At one point, the Hamilton team leader for our work with HUD came over to my house to try to persuade me that we should help HUD do this. He said that if we did not help HUD with the budget, he was concerned that we would be fired. We agreed that HUD was probably going to persuade the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that they could trust the budget, because Hamilton helped prepare it; hence, my concern that our involvement would be used to perpetuate a fraudulent budget. I asked him to define the value of our contract in terms of an acceptable level of children going homeless or dying. How many children should we help be forced to the streets so that we could keep our contract? Suddenly, he stopped and said something like, “Why am I doing this? So what if we lose our contract? We have better things to do in our life than be a party to murder.” To which I replied, “Now you have it.”

I tell this story to remind the reader that we have become a society where the most dangerous serial killers who stalk our land kill with a pen and not with a sword. The most important unanswered question about Andrew Cuomo’s time at HUD goes beyond how or why he and his agency engineered gains into Andrew Farkas, John Ervin and so many other private pockets. The more important question is how many people went without basic necessities because Cuomo diverted resources away from honest taxpayers and the people that HUD was created to serve. How many children in New York and around the country went homeless or worse because vouchers or job training were not available?

This is the most important unanswered question.

Attorney General of New York

Last month, while traveling outside of the US, I declined to read the materials on an investment, because the jurisdiction of the non-disclosure agreement that I was asked to sign was a state in the United States known for significant corruption in its enforcement and court system. In a highly competitive global market, why bother taking risk related to US corruption? The investment group understood completely and quickly delegated the agreement to a foreign entity, permitting me to sign under the jurisdiction of the country I was visiting. It is a country known for its lawfulness. They informed me that I was not the only person to make such a request.

It may sound like a little thing, until you realize the growing number of investors around the world who do not want to be exposed to the banana republic style corruption now perceived to be epidemic in the United States.

New York is the center of the financial markets in the United States. The health of these markets depends on investors’ faith in the integrity of their governance. The perception that the lead New York regulator is a politician who exploits the power of his or her office for personal ambition and finances will impact the flow and pricing of capital throughout the United States.

My recommendation, to both New Yorkers and members of the US financial and legal establishment concerned with America’s ability to attract capital in global markets, is that they ensure that the unanswered questions relating to Andrew Cuomo’s dealings with Andrew Farkas and Insignia and any other HUD-related special interests that have financed him and his campaigns be investigated and answered before Andrew Cuomo is permitted to hold public office again.

ENDNOTES
1 For background on Hamilton’s work for HUD, see Hamilton litigation archive at http://www.solari.com/gideon
2 See Rice's Loss Of HUD Job Is City Of Seattle's Gain
The Seattle Times
December 21, 1996
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin
/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2366139&
date=19961221&query=Rice+%2B+HUD
Criminal Probe Clears Rice Over HUD Loan -- But Application Process Under Question
Susan Byrnes
Wednesday, July 30, 1997
Seattle Times
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-
bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2552113&
date=19970730&query=Rice+%2B+HUD+%2B+Investigation
3 See Andrew Cuomo’s $2 Million Man
By Wayne Barrett, with special reporting by Alex Altman and Alicia Lozano
Village Voice
September 5th, 2006
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0636,lozano,74361,6.html
4 See
Registration of Securities by AIMCO (with description of Insignia Merger)
September 4, 1998
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/926660/0000950134-98-007408.txt
1998 AIMCO SEC Filings
(Insignia Merger Agreed in May, Approved in September)
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?type=
&dateb=1999%2F01%2F01&owner=include&count=
40&action=getcompany&CIK=0000926660
5 See Andrew Cuomo’s $2 Million Man
By Wayne Barrett, with special reporting by Alex Altman and Alicia Lozano
Village Voice
September 5th, 2006
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0636,lozano,74361,6.html
6 See Fees for Our Friends: The Scandal that Taints Andrew Cuomo
By Lucy Komisar
The Komisar Scoop
August, 2006
Part One: http://thekomisarscoop.com/2006/08/22/
fees-for-our-friends-the-scandal-that-taints-andrew-cuomo/
Part Two: http://thekomisarscoop.com/2006/08/30/
fees-for-our-friends-the-andrew-cuomo-scandal-the-vendetta/
7 See description of qui tam lawsuit at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui_tam
8 See archive on Hamilton litigation at http://www.solari.com/gideon
For more on Scott Nordheimer and Hope VI Felon Eviction Policy, see:
Convicted swindler in city housing
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
May 21, 2001
http://thecommondenominator.com/052101_news1.html
DCHA tenants ask to manage complex
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
July 2, 2001
http://www.thecommondenominator.com/070201_news3.html
Metro miscue?
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
October 22, 2001
http://thecommondenominator.com/102201_news1.html
10 Affidavit of HUD Auditor
June 15, 1999
http://www.solari.com/gideon/legal/background/Denver%20Auditor%20Affidavit.pdf
11 For copy of FOIA disclosure on HUD/Ginnie Mae Contract Awards to John Ervin, October 1998, see http://www.dunwalke.com/resources/foia.htm
12 See Dillon, Read & Co. Inc and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits, by Catherine Austin Fitts, http://www.dunwalke.com
13 See Where is the Collateral? Part I and II
By Chris Sanders
Sanders Research Associates
October 28, 2003
http://www.whereisthemoney.org/S00223_collateral.htm
As well as supporting material on 1998 Congressional hearings on Congressional Hearings in 1998 on CIA narcotics trafficking allegations:
Congressional Record
May 2, 1998
Including Memorandum of Understanding explicitly exempting the requirement to report drug law violations by CIA non-employees to the Department of Justice http://www.solari.com/media/gideonMOU.html
Statement of Frederick P. Hitz, Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, US House of Representatives, regarding investigation of allegations of connections between CIA and The Contras in drug trafficking to the United States, Volume I: The California Story, 16 March 1998 http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_hr/980316-ps.htm

CIA IG Report – Volume II
By Mike Ruppert
From the Wilderness
October 21, 1998
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/volii.html
14 See Statement of Susan Gaffney, Inspector General, Department of Housing and Urban Development, before the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology
March 22, 2000
http://www.whereisthemoney.org/59billion.htm
15 See Kelly Patricia O’Meara’s ‘Missing Money’ Series on HUD
http://www.solari.com/learn/articles_missingmoney.htm
Why is $59 Billion Missing from HUD?
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, November 2000
Cuomo Leaves HUD in Shambles
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, March 2001
Inside HUD’s Financial Fiasco
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, June 2001
HUD’s Financial Woes Continue
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, April 2003
16 See Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Housing and Urban Development
By the General Accounting Office (GAO)
GAO/OCG-99-8
(Single family and Rental Housing Assistance stay on GAO High Risk List)
January 1, 1999
http://www.gao.gov
SOURCES
Financial Backing of HUD Property Manager Andrew Farkas:
As Rival Quits Race, Cuomo Business Link Is Topic of Questions
By Jonathan P. Hicks and Patrick Healy
New York Times
September 6, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/nyregion/06ag.html
Andrew Cuomo’s $2 Million Man
By Wayne Barrett, with special reporting by Alex Altman and Alicia Lozano
Village Voice
September 5th, 2006
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0636,lozano,74361,6.html
Candidate Cuomo Returns From Desert Sojourn
By Anna Schneider-Mayerson
The New York Observer
June 12, 2006
http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=12934&ic=News+Story+4
SEC Filings Related to Acquisition of Insignia by AIMCO:
September 4, 1998
Registration of Securities by AIMCO (with description of Insignia Merger)
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/926660/0000950134-98-007408.txt
1998 AIMCO SEC Filings
(Insignia Merger Agreed in May, Approved in September)
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?type
=&dateb=1999%2F01%2F01&owner =include&
count=40&action=getcompany&CIK=0000926660
Cancellation of HUD Loan Sales & M2M Policies:
Fees for Our Friends: The Scandal that Taints Andrew Cuomo
By Lucy Komisar
The Komisar Scoop
August, 2006
Part One: http://thekomisarscoop.com/2006/08/22/
fees-for-our-friends-the-scandal-that-taints-andrew-cuomo/
Part Two: http://thekomisarscoop.com/2006/08/30/
fees-for-our-friends-the-andrew-cuomo-scandal-the-vendetta/
Where is the Collateral? Part I and II
By Chris Sanders
Sanders Research Associates
October 28, 2003
http://www.whereisthemoney.org/S00223_collateral.htm
HUD/Ginnie Mae Contract Awards to John Ervin, October 1998
http://www.dunwalke.com/resources/foia.htm
Affadavit of HUD Auditor
June 15, 1999
http://www.solari.com/gideon/legal/background/
Denver%20Auditor%20Affidavit.pdf
Litigation Archive – The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.
http://www.solari.com/gideon
Chronology at Litigation Archive – The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.
http://www.solari.com/media/chronology.htm
The Myth of the Rule of Law
By Catherine Austin Fitts
Sanders Research Associates
November 2001
http://www.solari.com/gideon/q301.pdf
$59 Billion Missing from HUD & Financial Control Problems
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Housing and Urban Development
By the General Accounting Office (GAO)
GAO/OCG-99-8
(Single family and Rental Housing Assistance stay on GAO High Risk List)
January 1, 1999
http://www.gao.gov
Statement of Susan Gaffney, Inspector General, Department of Housing and Urban Development, before the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, March 22, 2000
http://www.whereisthemoney.org/59billion.htm
Government fails third annual audit
(HUD Gets “F”)
By Katy Saldarin
April 3, 2000
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0400/040300k1.htm
Kelly Patricia O’Meara’s ‘Missing Money’ Series on HUD
http://www.solari.com/learn/articles_missingmoney.htm
Why is $59 Billion Missing from HUD?
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, November 2000
Cuomo Leaves HUD in Shambles
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, March 2001
Inside HUD’s Financial Fiasco
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, June 2001
HUD’s Financial Woes Continue
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Insight Magazine, April 2003
Were there Double Standards in HUD Policies?
Pearlie Rucker’s Eviction from HUD Housing in 1997:
One Strike for the Poor and How Many for the Rest of Us?
By Robert Hornstein, Treena Kaye,
March 18, 2002
Legal Times
http://www.mapinc.org/newscsdp/v02/n568/a03.html
Felon Scott Nordheimer and Hope VI Felon Eviction Policy:
Convicted swindler in city housing
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
May 21, 2001
http://thecommondenominator.com/052101_news1.html
DCHA tenants ask to manage complex
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
July 2, 2001
http://www.thecommondenominator.com/070201_news3.html
Metro miscue?
By John DeVault
Common Denominator
October 22, 2001
http://thecommondenominator.com/102201_news1.html
Congressional Hearings on Dark Alliance Allegations:
Congressional Record
May 2, 1998
Including Memorandum of Understanding explicitly exempting the requirement to report drug law violations by CIA non-employees to the Department of Justice
http://www.solari.com/media/gideonMOU.html
Statement of Frederick P. Hitz, Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, US House of Representatives, regarding investigation of allegations of connections between CIA and The Contras in drug trafficking to the United States, Volume I: The California Story,
16 March 1998
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_hr/980316-ps.htm
CIA IG Report – Volume II
By Mike Ruppert
From the Wilderness
October 21, 1998
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/volii.html
Other
Endorsements of Mark Green:
Cuomo vs Green
New York Times
August 27, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?
res=F60816FC3B5A0C748EDDA10894DE404482
Green yes, Cuomo no
Newsday
September 8, 2006 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/
ideas_opinions/story/450300p-378998c.html
Soprano TV Shows on HUD Fraud:
Watching Too Much Television
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watching_Too_
Much_Television_(The_Sopranos_episode)
Calling all Cars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calling_All_Cars_%
28The_Sopranos_episode%29
Cuomo Speaking Fees:
Cuomo is Speech - $ Admissions
By Cassi Feldman
New York Post
July 16, 2006
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/
cuomo_in_speech__admission_regionalnews_cassi_feldman.htm
Investigation of Norm Rice, Mayor of Seattle:
Rice's Loss Of HUD Job Is City Of Seattle's Gain
The Seattle Times
December 21, 1996
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi
-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2366139&
date=19961221&query=Rice+%2B+HUD
Criminal Probe Clears Rice Over Hud Loan -- But Application Process Under Question
Susan Byrnes
Wednesday, July 30, 1997
Seattle Times
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi
-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=2552113&
date=19970730&query=Rice+%2B+HUD+%2B+Investigation

© Copyright 2006, Catherine Austin Fitts, www.solari.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

Mapping The Real Deal is a column on Scoop supervised by Catherine Austin Fitts. Ms Fitts is the President of Solari, Inc. http://www.solari.com/. Ms. Fitts is the former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner during the first Bush Administration, a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co. Inc. and President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.

© Scoop Media