I don't know whether Al Franken will in the end prevail in Minnesota's US Senate race, but I am beginning to think that if Norm Coleman were smart he'd be in the tank for Franken. For it would be better for Coleman if the investigation of his rich and sleazy friends, and their extra-legal schemes for funneling money his way, proceeded while he occupied any other space than his seat in the US Senate.
Here is what reporters seem to know so far.
In 2006, Coleman's wife, Laurie, began working for an insurance company owned by multimillionaire Jim Hays, a contributor to Coleman's campaigns. This raised eyebrows, because Laurie Coleman had not hitherto shown any interest in the insurance industry. Despite her advancing years, she spent a lot of time in Hollywood pursuing a career as an actress and model. She's had some small parts, been photographed in lingerie, and invented a device for drying hair that, because it is not hand-held, allows the primping woman to multi-task--it's called the Blo & Go (wink, wink; chortle, chortle.)
Then during this year's Senate campaign Paul McKim, a Republican businessman in Texas who had founded a company called Deep Marine Technology Inc., filed a lawsuit alleging that he had, at the direction of Nasser Kazeminy, who holds a controlling interest in Deep Marine, sent $75,000 to Hays Companies Inc. to be passed along to Laurie Coleman. Kazeminy is another Coleman contributor. The suit alleges that no services were rendered and that Kazeminy said Coleman did not earn enough money as a senator and needed help.
McKim says he sent three quarterly payments of $25,000, but then blocked a fourth payment for the same amount and filed suit. Minority shareholders in Deep Marine have filed a separate suit that makes substantially the same allegations. McKim is named as a defendant in the shareholders' suit.
Today came news that Hays, Kazeminy, and both Colemans have retained top-flight criminal defense attorneys to represent their interests in the investigations and pending lawsuits. The Colemans are not named as defendants in either case, but their names are mentioned in the complaints, and the details, as they have been reported so far, make one wonder whether their pricey lawyers will be paid with Deep Marine money.
Laurie Coleman has declined to comment on the suits. During the campaign, Norm Coleman denounced them as "smears" of himself and, of course, his FAMILY. He did not take up the question of why Paul McKim would want to smear him and his FAMILY. In his latest statements, he says he welcomes the investigations. Right!
A few of the sidelights that have emerged in the reporting of the Star Tribune newspaper are quite delicious. Laurie Coleman, though employed by the Hays Companies, is an "independent contractor" who can't write insurance policies or close deals herself. She does not have an office at the company's headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. It is not at all clear what she does for her salary.
Meanwhile, Jim Hays has had past legal troubles associated with his temper on the golf course. He is by all accounts a club-thrower and club-breaker. In 2003, at the exclusive Spring Hill Golf Club in Wayzata, his home course, he abruptly whacked a ball off the green after missing a putt. The ball struck a caddie in the ankle and inflicted an injury requiring surgery. The caddie sued and the case ended in "a confidential settlement."
Too bad that, in order to find out more about the lifestyles of Norm and his friends and FAMILY, we need him to be representing us in the Senate for another six years.
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