>Hsu Cast Wide Net For
> Clinton Donors/WashingtonPost
>
>
washingtonpost.com
>
> Hsu Cast Wide Net For Clinton Donors
>
> List Included Strangers, His Own Investors
>
> By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk
>
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Sunday, September 16, 2007; A01
>
> To raise $850,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential
> campaign in just eight months, Norman Hsu tapped an eclectic group of
> donors that included wealthy investors in his apparel ventures, hotel
> shopkeepers, a 96-year-old in a Florida retirement home and an auto-body
> worker who mistakenly thought he would get a tax break for his political
> generosity.
>
> The Clinton campaign has not yet released any information about the 260
> donors whose contributions it is now refunding because they were
> credited to the prodigious fundraising of the former fugitive, but a
> detailed analysis of donors Hsu brought to Clinton shows that he tapped
> many Asian American donors in California and New York, including
> complete strangers as well as his relatives. He also raised political
> funds from people who had already invested large sums in his private
> business ventures.
>
> Some donors among the nearly 100 identified this week said they never
> met Hsu and did not know that their donations had been credited to his
> fundraising. Others had trouble explaining why they gave the funds to
> Clinton or could not recall the circumstances in which they met Hsu.
>
> "He called me and asked me if I'd give $1,000. . . . I don't know how
> you'd say we struck up a relationship. I just knew him," said Henry
> Rosenberg, a New York City lawyer. Asked if he wanted Clinton, New
> York's junior senator, to be the next president, Rosenberg said: "I
> don't know. He just asked me to do it, and I did."
>
> Nay Oo, another Clinton donor for whom Hsu claimed credit, was listed in
> the candidate's fundraising reports with an address in Daly City, Calif.
> The home's owner, Ellen Yee, said Oo used to rent a room in the house
> but hadn't lived there for years. A man who returned a call to Oo's
> phone and identified himself as Oo said he works in an auto-body shop
> and does not know Hsu. He said he donated $250 to Clinton at the request
> of a landlord. "I thought it was going to be a tax write-off," he said.
>
> The case of the mysterious bundler has become a major embarrassment for
> Clinton and an echo of the campaign finance scandals that surrounded her
> husband's presidency in the 1990s. The campaign's decision to return the
> money associated with Hsu followed his recent arrest on charges of
> trying to outrun a 15-year-old warrant, but many questions remain about
> Hsu's fundraising tactics, the origin of the funds and whether they were
> all given legally.
>
> The names of Clinton donors for whom Hsu claimed credit were confirmed
> through a computer analysis of donations as well interviews with several
> people familiar with Hsu's fundraising. None of the donors connected to
> him has been accused of doing anything wrong.
>
> Robert H. Emmers, a Los Angeles publicist hired by Hsu's attorney, said
> Hsu -- who now sits in a Colorado jail cell -- is not responding to any
> of the allegations leveled against him. "There's a lot of speculation
> out there," Emmers said. "Mr. Hsu is not in a position to defend himself
> right now, so that needs to be taken into account."
>
> In just four years before being taken into custody, Hsu became a top
> political fundraiser. Not only was he among the top 15 "bundlers"
> nationwide for the Clinton presidential campaign, but he also helped
> fund the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, various congressional
> and Senate candidates, and the leadership committees for other
> presidential candidates such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen.
> Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).
>
> His intensive fundraising brought him close to their campaigns, which
> showered him with dinner invitations and opportunities to get his
> picture snapped with the politicians -- contacts that some businessmen
> said lent credibility to Hsu's efforts to sell investors on his clothing
> ventures.
>
> But his pursuit of political and business funds at the same time -- from
> many of the same people -- leaves unclear which was the end and which
> was the means. Was Hsu hoping to leverage his political affiliations to
> boost the credibility of his business? Or did he intend the more than $2
> million he bundled in political donations in four years to curry favor
> for some as-yet-undetermined goal?
>
> "Never once, that I ever came across, did he seem to have a particular
> policy or issue agenda," said Hassan Nemazee, one of Clinton's top New
> York fundraisers. "The only thing he ever seemed to want was to get his
> photo taken."
>
> Hsu, an immigrant from Hong Kong who by several accounts is a charming
> and easygoing man with an imperfect command of English, was convicted in
> California in 1991 for corporate theft, according to court records. Both
> the donors and the Clinton campaign have said they did not know about
> his past troubles during the period that he was channeling funds to the
> candidate. Several who mingled with Hsu at Clinton's lavish fundraising
> parties, strategy briefings and intimate dinners said he shared little
> about himself, beyond his work in what they called "the rag trade."
>
> Hsu's encounters with law enforcement authorities include a 1990
> incident in which he was kidnapped by a Chinese organized-crime figure,
> Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, who said Hsu owed him money, according to
> Foster City, Calif., police. Officers said they interrupted the crime
> during a 3 a.m. traffic stop, rescuing Hsu from the back of a Toyota.
>
> Hsu was taken into custody Sept. 6 in Colorado after failing to appear
> at a bail hearing related to the California theft case, threatening
> suicide and then falling ill on a train.
>
> Before his controversial past surfaced in late August, Hsu had built a
> reputation as an effective bundler of donations by others. "We sought
> him," said Marc Dunkelman, vice president for strategic communications
> at the Democratic Leadership Council, an advocacy group for centrist
> Democrats that was once chaired by Bill Clinton. Hsu donated $25,000 to
> the DLC this year, and the group is refunding the money, Dunkelman said.
>
> Hsu's name was referred to the Clinton campaign by professional
> fundraisers who were aware of his donations to other campaigns and
> groups, according to a former Clinton aide. Hsu's donors to the Clinton
> presidential campaign included four others with the last name Hsu,
> including his grown son, Oliver. They gave a total of $16,100.
>
> Hsu also claimed credit for donations by two other people, Danny Lee and
> Yu-Fen Huang, who have given $154,000 to Democratic causes since Hsu
> began his fundraising in late 2003. Fundraising and property records
> list them as joint owners of a nearly $1 million home in the New York
> neighborhood of Forest Hills.
>
> The donations from Lee and Huang include $38,000 to Clinton's Senate
> campaign, political action committee and presidential committee. The two
> gave a total of $9,200 -- the maximum allowed -- to Clinton's
> presidential bid in the first quarter of this year, donations for which
> Hsu claimed credit. They also gave $8,400 in January to Clinton's 2012
> Senate campaign, even though her reelection bid is six years off.
>
> The two listed their place of employment as Newspring Packaging in Mount
> Carmel, Pa. Lee is listed as a vice president of Newspring, which makes
> plastic containers for food, and Huang is listed as a manager.
>
> A third employee of Newspring, Soe Win Lee, also donated the maximum
> allowed amount to Clinton's campaign and made other recent Democratic
> donations. None of the three Newspring employees returned calls to their
> company seeking comment. Newspring's parent company, Pactiv Corp. of
> Illinois, said it does not comment on the private activities of its
> employees. It is not clear what connection, if any, Hsu had to the firm.
>
> A few donors for whom Hsu claimed credit said that they didn't know him
> and that others must have passed their checks to him to give to
> Clinton's campaign.
>
> Karen Tan, an employee at Super One Vision in San Francisco, said a
> friend who worked for California Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma asked
> her to contribute to Clinton. Donations that Ma collected, including
> Tan's, were credited to both Ma and Hsu because together they threw an
> August fundraiser for Clinton. Hsu contributed $8,300 to Ma's 2006 campaign.
>
> A review of fundraising records found much overlap between Hsu's
> business investors and the political donations for which he claimed
> credit -- something that is common among political bundlers, who often
> solicit contributions from their business contacts.
>
> For example, Hsu received fundraising credit with the Clinton campaign
> for $19,200 in contributions from executives at Source Financing
> Investors, a New York City investment fund run by 1960s Woodstock
> concert organizer Joel Rosenman, on March 28. The next day, Rosenman's
> 96-year-old father, Bernard, sent $4,600 to Clinton from his Boynton
> Beach, Fla., retirement home, for which Hsu also claimed credit.
>
> The investment group put $40 million into 37 separate investment
> proposals by Hsu to import clothing from China, according to Seth L.
> Rosenberg, a New York lawyer for the group. But Rosenberg said he
> believes that the money may be gone. The New York City district attorney
> has launched an investigation of the allegations.
>
> Rosenberg said he has asked politicians to hold on to any checks they
> collected from Hsu. "We want to be sure that any candidates who received
> money from Mr. Hsu act responsibly with those contributions so they may
> be returned to the victims of Mr. Hsu if indeed they are the source of
> those funds," he said.
>
> Three members of the Paw family in Daly City, Calif., both donated to
> Clinton and invested in Hsu's apparel business, a circumstance first
> reported last month by the Wall Street Journal. The Paws operated a gift
> shop in a hotel where they befriended Hsu in the 1990s.
>
> Frank Ubhouse, the Paws' attorney, said Friday that although the family
> initially made some money, its members are concerned about the fate of
> their remaining investments with Hsu. "Given what is now known, I think
> there's got to be a lot of concern. The big question is, when the music
> stops, will everyone have a chair?"
>
> In Irvine, Calif., businessman Jack Cassidy alerted the FBI and
> Clinton's campaign this summer to his concerns that Hsu was soliciting
> people he knew for investments in what appeared to be an illegal Ponzi
> scheme, in which early investors are rewarded with funds obtained from
> subsequent investors. The FBI recently interviewed Cassidy and collected
> documents as part of an initial inquiry.
>
> Cassidy said he was concerned that Hsu had invoked his role as a Clinton
> fundraiser to gain the confidence of people he was meeting. "If you are
> opening a hamburger stand, you want to put a set of golden arches
> outside," Cassidy said, referring to the McDonald's symbol. "Hsu was
> using Hillary Clinton as his golden arches."
>
> Another California resident, Chi Kou Fan, alleged that he was bilked
> years ago in the investment that resulted in Hsu's 1991 conviction on
> grand theft. He recalled that "Norman would make friends with one guy,
> and then move around to meet all this guy's friends, and soon they would
> all be his investors."
>
> Fan, a retired San Francisco area real estate developer who lost
> $240,000 in the Hsu investment, was one of 16 investors in a deal to
> sell latex gloves imported from China to an Illinois company, Service
> Master, according to court records. In early 1989, as the deal took
> shape, Hsu promised investors a 5 or 6 percent return on their money.
> But after a year, investors had still not seen their money. When state
> investigators called Service Master's accountants, they found no record
> of any deal for latex gloves.
>
> Research editor Alice Crites, staff researcher Madonna Lebling and
>
washingtonpost.com database editor Derek Willis contributed to this article.
>
> (c) 2007 The Washington Post Company
