As most of you know I have been following the whole Katie and Jim King debacle from the beginning and continue to uncover many things that must be asked and answered. The KREF received my completed 14 page KREF complaint on Thursday February 12 complete with attachments, for them to initiate an investigation into campaign loans and financing.
A press release was sent to media outlets complete with a copy of the complaint for their review.
I am of the opinion, based on my findings through open records, that campaign finance laws have not only been broken but disregarded entirely by the Kings. It has been a constant nag about how Katie could have loaned herself $50,000 during the primary alone based on her salary income. While researching the Kings it was discovered that Katie purchased her home with financing obtained from the King owned People's State Bank in Chaplin, Kentucky, that is now named King Southern Bank, but owned by King BanCorp at the time. I was curious to see why the loan had to be made outside of Jefferson County since her dad owned it anyway.
As you may recall I have reported on this issue for some time including having had some serious questions about this previously: Louisville News and Politics: JIM AND KATIE KING: Questions abound
The Katie King Campaign for District Judge was operated entirely by financially interested family members and business associates. Each loan submitted by Kathryn King to her Campaign Committee was addressed to and from King Southern Bank, the depository bank of the Committee, which is owned and operated by her father and campaign treasurer, James O. King Jr.
Furthermore, the dubious mortgage instrument dated October 27, 2008 was prepared by Raymond J. Naber Jr., a member of Gold-King Title Services LLC., of which Ms. King is a founding member.
To my knowledge Gold-King only does work for family members and King Southern Bank.
The Campaign Committee also employed the King family operated CPA firm for campaign bookkeeping and financial recording purposes. Multiple treasurers resigned from Katie King’s campaign, all within two weeks prior and one day subsequent to this financing, including Matthew Conway and James O. King Jr.
The $209,000 in financing was made available by King Southern Bank nearly one week before the election on November 4, 2008. Five weeks thereafter, the Kings refused to disclose this and other information through retained legal counsel.
It is interesting to see that Jim King essentially took over as campaign treasurer for about 8 days and on the day before he resigned gave his daughter a $209,000 loan on a 5 year note at an unknown interest rate.
Interestingly enough the original mortgage on her home was a 30 yr fixed for $130,500.
There has been no lien release on the original first mortgage on record and the house has shown no readily available improvements to warrant another mortgage of $209,000 on a home valued substantially less than that.
It would appear that currently the house is mortgaged for over $339,000 and is only worth roughly half that.
Would any other person qualify for a loan with that risk? With that salary history? Did this violate fair lending practices as set forth by the fed?
Though the cases are not identical, a similar case exists in regards to campaign finance co mingling of funds, fraudulent campaign reports etc. The case is one of Matt Kelty, a GOP candidate for Mayor of Ft Wayne, Indiana. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Kelty. A synopsis from this is as follows:
Legal Issues
On August 14, 2007, Kelty was indicted on 9 charges relating to his campaign. Five of the nine charges are felonies for filing fraudulent campaign reports, two of the felony charges are for perjury, and the 2 misedemeanor charges are for co-mingling of funds.
Kelty's lawyers filed a motion to dismiss all charges on October 22, 2007.
On February 8, 2008, Kelty's motion to dismiss all charges was denied.
Kelty was scheduled to stand trial on October 20, 2008 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Prosecutor Dan Sigler stated it does not appear Kelty has any plans of pleading out. Judge Scheibenberger said he would accept a plea bargain no later than October 19th. Kelty's lawyers were granted a one day continuance on October 20, 2008 in order to look into new evidence obtained over the weekend.
Due to this Kelty's trial was pushed back to October 21, 2008.
Conviction
On October 20, 2008, Kelty pleaded guilty to three of the nine counts against him. Due to his plea, Kelty will avoid jail time in which he was facing upwards to 20 years in prison. Pursuant to the plea bargain Kelty will pay a $250 fine for each conviction (total of $750) and serve 80 hours of community service. Kelty will also serve one years probation.
Two of the three counts Kelty pleaded guilty to were related to campaign finance laws. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false informing, admitting to providing false testimony to the grand jury. The other charges, including perjury, were dropped. Kelty will be allowed to keep his architecture license despite the felonies, but they will prevent Kelty from being eligible to run for public office again at the state or local level. He may petition the court to have the felonies reduced to misdemeanor.
These questions must be asked and answered. This is why I submitted the complaint. We cannot afford for our judgeships to be bought and paid for by sleazy political means.
They must be above board for the integrity of us all.
well done. Glad someone stuck with this. Can't believe it fell to the wayside after the election. I have a feeling that if none of this were brought up we'd be seeing the same shady campaigning from Katie when she runs for some other office/political seat, because that's all this judgeship is to her, a steppingstone. SHe has no interest in being a judge, nor the intellect. She's doing this to appease daddy and get set up to run for some elected office in the future. As proof look at the funtions Ms. King has been seen attending for political parties. Bet on the fact she'll be in a race in a few years. Also, she pulls two incomes, or at least did for some time. She was pulling a paycheck from her dads bank as an employee, but never worked in that bank a day. This was especially true when she was at UL, around the time she had to go in front of a board for cheating in law school. Once again, daddy gets her what she wants.
ReplyDeleteI believe that anyone in law that gets anything by cheating the system should be disbarred. Especially anyone that is ethically and morally challenged. They as well have a responsiblity to uphold the laws of this state and city as well as all applicable federal laws.
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