Politics Ben Carson Profits from Ties with Convicted Felon

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by magnifier661, Nov 12, 2015.

  1. magnifier661

    magnifier661 B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

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    Ben Carson Profits From Ties With Convicted Felon
    Despite tough-on-crime talk, Carson profits from friendship with dentist convicted of fraud

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    This office building is owned by BenCan LLC, and INBS LLC, in Mount Lebanon, Pa. Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship with a close friend, Pittsburgh dentist Alfonso Costa, convicted of defrauding insurance companies, even as the candidate has called for such crimes to be punished harshly.

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    By MICHAEL BIESECKER and EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship with a close friend convicted of defrauding insurance companies and testified on his behalf, even as the candidate has called for such crimes to be punished harshly.

    Pittsburgh dentist Alfonso A. Costa pleaded guilty to a felony count of health care fraud after an FBI probe into his oral surgery practice found he had charged for procedures he never performed, according to court records.

    Though the crime carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison, Costa was able to avoid prison time after Carson helped petition a federal judge for leniency.


    Presidential candidate Carson calls for more military force at border
    KGUN - Tucson, AZ

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    That's different from the position Carson took in 2013 as he prepared to launch his presidential campaign, saying those convicted of health care fraud should go to prison for at least a decade and be forced to forfeit "all of one's personal possessions."

    At Costa's 2008 sentencing hearing, Carson described the dentist as "one my closest, if not my very closest friend."

    "We became friends about a decade ago because we discovered that we were so much alike and shared the same values and principles that govern our lives," Carson told the judge, adding that their families vacationed together and that they were involved in "joint projects."

    "Next to my wife of 32 years, there is no one on this planet that I trust more than Al Costa," Carson said.

    Costa has served on the board of Carson's charity, the Carson Scholars Fund, and continues to lead the charity's fundraising efforts in the Pittsburgh area to provide $1,000 college scholarships to children in need.

    Before his criminal conviction and the revocation of his license to practice dentistry, Costa built a multimillion-dollar fortune through commercial real estate. Investments Carson and his wife made through Costa earn the couple between $200,000 and $2 million a year, according to financial records that Carson was required to file when he declared his candidacy.

    Costa also continues to promote his involvement with Carson's charity as part of his real estate business, prominently featuring the logo of the Carson Scholars Fund on the company's website. His son has worked with Carson's presidential campaign and a political committee founded by the retired neurosurgeon.

    Doug Watts, the campaign's spokesman, said Wednesday he was unable to immediately respond to specific questions about land deals involving Carson and Costa. The AP contacted Watts on Tuesday and again Wednesday.

    "I will confirm they are best friends and that they do hold business investments together," Watts said.

    Costa did not respond to messages seeking comment.

    The breadth of the two men's business ties has not been previously reported, partly because details can be obscured in property and incorporation records. Costa's company and its affiliates own properties in at least five states and overseas.

    In 2007, a few months before Costa was charged, records show that a pair of corporations was established in Pennsylvania called BenCan LLC, and INBS LLC. Carson and his wife are listed as the sole members of the companies. Though the Carsons live outside Baltimore, the mailing address on the incorporation forms was Costa's home address in Pittsburgh.

    BenCan and INBS then paid more than $3 million to purchase an office building in suburban Pittsburgh. The mailing address for the corporations listed on the deed matches the office of Costa's real estate firm, Costa Land Co.

    That September, federal prosecutors charged Costa, accusing him of fraud committed over a nearly five-year period, according to court records. Investigators determined that Costa's dental practice charged more than 50 patients for procedures that had not been performed, resulting in a loss of more than $40,000 to insurance companies.

    After Costa pleaded guilty, 40 of his family members, friends and dental patients wrote letters to the judge as character witnesses. Carson was one of three people who also testified at Costa's 2008 sentencing hearing, stressing his friend's charitable works and vouching for his personal integrity. Also testifying on Costa's behalf was Jerome Bettis, a beloved former Pittsburgh Stealers running back who had helped bring home a Super Bowl trophy to the city two years earlier.

    The government urged the judge to make an example of Costa.

    "Reduction of a sentence based on good works by a wealthy person can create the appearance that a defendant's financial resources and prominent connections can skew the justice system in ways not available to persons of lesser means," a prosecutor told the judge.

    In the end, Costa got no prison time. He was sentenced to one year of house arrest and 100 hours of community service, and ordered to pay more than $294,000 in fines and restitution. Costa later got 12 months shaved off his three-year probation.

    Though Costa was assigned to serve his sentence in his 8,300-square-foot mansion in nearby Fox Chapel, his lawyers repeatedly returned to court to seek permission for him to travel. A few months after starting his sentence, Costa asked to travel to the White House as one of 10 invited guests at a June 2008 ceremony where President George W. Bush presented Carson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    The judge denied that request, though Costa was later allowed to take a month-long trip to the Italian coast while on probation to handle what his lawyer described as urgent business at a resort he owns.

    Carson's appeal for leniency toward Costa contradicts the draconian criminal penalties he called for in his 2013 political treatise, "America the Beautiful." In his book, Carson wrote that anyone found guilty of health care fraud should face what he called the "Saudi Arabian Solution."

    "Why don't people steal very often in Saudi Arabia?" Carson asked. "Obviously because the punishment is the amputation of one or more fingers. I would not advocate chopping off people's limbs, but there would be some very stiff penalties for this kind of fraud, such as loss of one's medical license for life, no less than 10 years in prison, and loss of all of one's personal possessions."

    Despite the tough-on-crime message, Carson and his wife kept their investment with Costa in the years since his conviction. Tax bills for the Pittsburgh office building owned by the couple are mailed to Costa Land Co. A recent lease for a portion of the property was signed on the Carsons' behalf by the president of Costa's company.

    http://www.usnews.com/news/politics...ive-carson-profits-from-friendship-with-felon


     
  2. dviss1

    dviss1 Emcee Referee

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    IMHO Uncle Ben isn't really running for president. He's simply building his "brand" to make hundreds of thousands per speaking event.
     
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  3. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    Washington, Nov. 11 (AP) - Chairmen of several Congressional committees announced yesterday that they will open multiple years-long Republican investigations into Ben Carson. "We did it all through the Clinton presidency about minor paperwork errors that we called scandals like Travelgate, so why wouldn't we do it against Carson?" opined Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman offered, "We've done it to Hillary Clinton three times--Whitewater, Benghazi, and something about e-mails that I don't understand. Why wouldn't we do it to a crook like Carson?"
     
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  4. speeds

    speeds $2.50 highball, $1.50 beer Staff Member Administrator GFX Team

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  5. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko Staff Member Global Moderator

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    That actually would make a lot of sense, except that if he doesn't drop out soon his brand is going to be damaged, rather than enhanced, by the campaign.

    I'm not sure Herman Cain's brand is better than it was in 2011.

    barfo
     
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  6. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    [​IMG]

    Trump said he doesn't believe Carson's story that a belt buckle stopped the knife when Carson tried to stab someone. In Fort Dodge, where I went to school, Trump told the audience that the surgeon is pathological.

    The farmer sitting on our far left seems nervous.
     
  7. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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  8. magnifier661

    magnifier661 B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

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    Ben Carson Hires State Chair Who Supported Jim Crow And Opposed The Civil Rights Act
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    CREDIT: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

    Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson speaks at a luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, Friday, Oct. 9, 2015.

    Republican presidential frontrunner Ben Carson announced on Friday that he has named former federal judge Charles W. Pickering to serve as his Mississippi state chair. In a statement, Carson said he is grateful for the retired judge’s “trust and confidence,” and Pickering said Carson has the “integrity and moral authority to lead and bring America together.”

    But Pickering, the new campaign leader who hopes help the only black candidate in the 2016 race to bring the country together, has a troubled history of racism and support for segregation. Most notably, he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and attacked advocates who were working to end Jim Crow during the 1960s.

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    Federal appeals court nominee Charles Pickering is photographed in Jackson, Miss., Feb. 21, 2002.

    CREDIT: AP Photo/Rogelio Solis, File

    When former President George W. Bush appointed Pickering to the Fifth Circuit in 2004, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully voted to reject his nomination, pointing to his shameful racist past. At the time, Pickering attempted to disavow his past to secure the nomination, telling the Senate in 2002 that he has been “trying to establish better race relations” in his home state of Mississippi. But Democrats questioned whether the move was political and Princeton University history professor Sean Wilentz uncovered evidence, reported in Salon at the time, that Pickering lied about his efforts to disavow white supremacy and improve race relations in Mississippi.

    The evidence showed that Pickering left the Democratic Party in 1964 to protest the party’s support for civil rights and renouncement of segregation — part of his history that he did not admit to during his Senate confirmation hearings, despite repeated questioning from Democratic lawmakers.

    According to Wilentz’s investigation in Salon, papers belonging to his former law partner, J. Carroll Gartin, uncovered the truth about Pickering’s past and proved how much information he had not shared about his racist past:

    Gartin’s papers show conclusively that, contrary to [Sen. Mitch] McConnell’s description, Pickering himself was one of those “white citizens and politicians who resisted integration and civil rights,” not someone working to oppose such forces. Instead of “trying to establish better race relations” in the 1960s, Pickering worked to support segregation, attack civil rights advocates who sought to end Jim Crow, and back those who opposed national civil rights legislation, above all the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Or, in the words of a public statement he signed in 1967, Pickering wanted to preserve “our southern way of life,” and he bitterly blamed civil rights workers for stirring up “turmoil and racial hatred” in the South.

    In the 1960s, Wilentz continued, Pickering was a one of the “sophisticated segregationists.”

    This key point of his political history wasn’t the only thing he omitted from his confirmation hearings. Pickering also called Gartin, who was a devoted segregationist, a “progressive” political leader during the hearings. Under examination by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Pickering eventually admittedthis was false.

    Pickering also testified that he worked closely with the FBI in the 1960s to prosecute the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). Although true, he distorted the truth when he testified that he contacted Mississippi’s notoriously racist Sovereignty Commission about possible KKK infiltration of a union in his hometown — Wilentz reportedthat Pickering actually contacted the commission about union infiltration by a well-known civil rights organization, not the KKK.

    Pickering isn’t the first person with a troubled past who Carson has appointed to his campaign. Last month, Carson announced the members of his “medical coalition” and ThinkProgress found that most of the members are vocal Obamacare opponents or anti-vaccine proponents. One person on the coalition, pharmacist Robert Henderson, serves on the national council of the John Birch Society, a fringe group the Southern Poverty Law Center says was exiled by the conservative movement half a century ago because of its racist and anti-Semitic roots.

    Despite Carson’s controversial appointments and his belief that the Black Lives Matter movement is “silly” and “sickening,” a Carson aide has said that his success in the primary is proof that America is “not racist.”
     
  9. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Pickering is trying to help a black man get elected president. He could have chosen a white republican candidate to support.

    :crazy:
     
  10. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    Also, if you're pasting from some WWW site, please provide a link to the original.
     
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  11. magnifier661

    magnifier661 B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

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  12. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    thinkprogress supports Trump?

    I don't think so.
     
  13. magnifier661

    magnifier661 B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

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    Think progress doesn't like trump
     

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