Norm Coleman had a home remodeling project go $86,000 over budget just as Nasser Kazeminy allegedly tried to convey $100,000 to Norm's wife through her employer. Coleman's office provided an accounting of the $414,000 project that showed a supporter who coordinated the deal was paid $33,000. The senator remortgaged his home for $775,000 and admits he owes more than it's now worth, but otherwise wouldn't comment.
More Norm home: There are two suits but no proof Kazeminy tried to get the money to Coleman; no proof Coleman knew or profited from that scheme if it existed, and no evidence that anything illegal happened with the home project. Still, that's a big mortgage for a guy making $180,000, whose wife has a part-time job, and whose retirement/investment accounts are under $600,000.
Brauer credits Fox's Tom Lyden with breaking the story.
HufPo ran the story, again crediting the Fox/Leyden effort.
MinnPost seems to have the gist, gossip free, while Fox further reports:
The FBI is now reportedly investigating the allegations that Nasser Kazeminy tried to funnel $75,000 in campaign contributions through the Senator's wife. By why would a U.S. Senator, who makes about $180,000 a year, need the money?
Norm Coleman's home in St. Paul's Crocus Hill neighborhood is not lavish -- but it's a lot nicer than it used to be, thanks in part to contractor Jim Taylors, who helped remodel the home two years ago.
"Put in a second floor master bedroom/bathroom, the bedroom was there, we just added a bathroom and closet and a kitchen remodel, actually turned into half the house remodel by the time we painted and refinished floors and did some landscape work," says Taylors.
The remodeled kitchen was the backdrop for some of the Senator's campaign commercials. FOX 9 learned the woman in charge of the project was Shari Wilsey, an interior designer. Wilsey, along with her husband Roger, are longtime friends of the Coleman's and financial contributors to the Senator's campaigns.
The Wilsey's even hosted a fundraiser for Senator Coleman during the Republican National Convention at their Summit Ave mansion, just blocks from the Coleman's.
Two lawsuits allege that in spring of 2007, Edina businessman Nasser Kazeminy began a series of $25,000 payments to Coleman from Deep Marine Technology, a company he controlled in Texas, to Hays Companies, the Minnesota Insurance company where Laurie Coleman works.
Senator Coleman is not a party to the lawsuits -- denying any wrongdoing. "My wife has been devastated, impugning her integrity, the allegations are false and defamatory," he says.
But government ethics professor David Schultz says tough questions are fair game, when serious financial allegations are made involving a United States senator.
"It speaks to first, in terms of credibility, in terms of what Norm Coleman has to say in responding to allegations. Second it speaks to the whole sense of motive, motive in terms of why he at this point might be trying to raise money," says Schultz.
While Coleman didn't agree to sit down for a interview, his campaign did agree to share billing records of the remodeling project. Original projections in 2006 estimated a cost of $328,000, but four months later, the construction cost was estimated at $414,000, over-budget by $86,000.
During that time is when, the lawsuit alleges, Kazeminy was trying to get money to Coleman.
According to the lawsuits, in March of 2007, Kazeminy said that "U.S. Senators don't make s---" and he was going to try to find a way to get money to Coleman.
"On the one level it could just be a coincidence, on the other level this could be one of the reasons he's getting that money from elsewhere, to try to make up for his, to be able to pay off a loan, pay off a line of credit," says Schultz.
Records provided by the campaign show that Coleman paid Wilsey in full for the renovation -- $414,000. In part, by refinancing his home in March 2007, for $775,000.
The Senator acknowledges, that like a lot of people in America, he now owes more on his home than it's actually worth.
What we know is this: the Senator had costly and over-budget renovations to his home at the same time a contributer was allegedly trying to funnel him money. But he's still criticized for walking away from reporters, while the questions aren't going away.
The original Oct. 6, 2008 Harper's story on the Senator's DC row house basement housing mere blocks from his work place, said this [emphasis added]:
In July 2007, Coleman began paying Larson $600 a month in rent for a portion of a one-bedroom basement apartment in a Capitol Hill town house… Earlier this month, after National Journal questioned Coleman and Larson about the living arrangement, the senator said he discovered that his rent for last November and January had not been paid. In mid-June, Coleman covered the back rent with a personal check for $1,200 made out to Larson and signed by the senator’s wife. Last year, Coleman sold furniture to Larson to cover one month’s rent, according to Larson. And Larson held on to yet another month’s rent check for three months, cashing it a few days after NJ’s inquiries.
Why the Senator would not sign and tender his own check, rather than it being issued by Laurie Coleman, is unclear. The present HufPo story murkily discusses timing, the remodel, the Kazeminy firm's checks to Hays, so that it is unclear on timing, as to how the Laurie Coleman check for the DC rent fits in, time wise, with money alleged to have been routed with intent to benefit the Senator indirectly or directly.
Also, whether Laurie Coleman issuing checks is the household norm, or unusual for the covering of the DC rent instance, is something only the Colemans, and their banking records, can answer.
________UPDATE________
This story seems to be growing legs. There is all this, Google News, where the question of just who or what the FBI is investigating is being obscured, and the extreme makeover of the Coleman home has been humorously characterized:
Lest you should think that Rod Blagojevich is alone in his greed and venality, don’t be deceived. It looks like Senator Norm Coleman up there in the north country was doing a little home renovation on the public dole, very similar to Ted Stevens of Alaska. I guess their cabins just needed a little extra insulation and the senators figured that the taxpayers would want them to be warm and comfy.
Minn Independent [Chris Steller 12/12/08 3:15 PM report posting online] has this photo of the remodeled kitchen, and a transcript of the Fox story, plus a link ostensibly to a "building permit" which instead is to Ramsey County property assessment info:
[I have not verified tax parcel number or address as tied for certain to the Colemans]; and the numbers do not fit with a mortgage refi for $150,000 above assessed value if assessed value is purported to be any approximation of fair market value - and that goes for the before-&-after remodel assessed value, and with the "value" of the "improvements" curiously underassessed by quite a substantial amount below reported cost - is this an illegal undisclosed "gift" to the Senator from folks in the assessor's office, or merely conservative assessment practices at play - he was the mayor, after all, now the Senator, so why would they overassess? Still, assessed improvements of $139,900 is just over 30% of the reported actual cost of $414,000 and that's simply stageringly inexplicable except as an intended gift rather than error or conservative practice. Am I wrong? Is there a Ramsey County assessor's officer person willing to explain this in a comment? It just looks dead wrong and suspicious to me.
As I read more of the writings I may further update the post if anything truly novel surfaces. More same old, same old, may be in a string listing, or wholly ignored. Any reader effort on finding a novel detail or two, and taking time to post a comment, would be appreciated.