Air America FLAP: PAY Gloria Wise the MONEY
Michelle Malkin has an excellent run down on the Air America FLAP.
Air America Radio and its left-wing acolytes hoped the loan scandal would go away, but there continues to be growing interest in AAR’s ever-evolving financial woes.
Air America’s pom-pom squad at the New York Times remains silent, but the New York Sun‘s David Lombino advances the funny money story considerably this morning, following last week’s blogswarm kicked off by Brian Maloney, followed here, amplified by the Washington Times editorial board, and picked up by Fox News’ Brit Hume ; CNN’s Inside Politics political producer Abbi Tatton and blog reporter Jacki Schechner; and the New York Post.
According to Lombino’s special report in the Sun:
The top executive at a Bronx youth organization said yesterday that the former director of Air America Radio received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and the radio network from the nonprofit organization while serving as its development director.
Some of the transfers, according to the president of the Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club organization’s executive committee, Jeannette Graves, occurred when the development director, Evan Montvel Cohen, who for a time served simultaneously as the liberal radio network’s director, appealed to the organization for two loans worth $35,000. Another member of the executive committee said Mr. Cohen told the executive director of the organization that he needed the money to pay for chemotherapy for himself and other medical expenses for his ill father.
Ms. Graves said that Mr. Cohen also received another $213,000 loan for Air America in a check that was approved without her authorization and stamped with an imprint of her signature, and that the club wired more than $400,000 to him without her knowledge…
…Ms. Graves said Air America has agreed in writing to pay back the full amount of more than $800,000 in installments over the next two years. It is unclear whether the funds allegedly obtained from Gloria Wise were ultimately received or spent by Air America...
Flap had a number of questions for the Air Deadbeat crowd (HT William Teach for the moniker) about repaying the money but Michelle has these:
1) Why don’t Air America radio execs make it clear, once and for all, exactly how much they have received from Gloria Wise and how much, if any, Piquant has repaid to date?
2) Has the liberal radio network received any other loans from any other non-profit organizations?
3) If so, how much was received and how much, if any, has Piquant repaid?
Hugh Hewitt pursues the nonprofit angle and asks where meddling New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is when you need him. Wizbang dissects AAR’s statements. Politburo Diktat notes pathetic attempts by some lefty bloggers to debunk the burgeoning scandal. Brian Maloney highlighted the lib backlash against him and has more here.
BoreAmerica, which has been tracking Air America’s woes since March 2004, has created a news ticker for all the latest updates.
Michelle and the blogosphere ask:
And what about the New York and/or Federal Grand Jury?
FBI Investigation?
Congressional Hearings when Congress reconvenes?
And again again……..
Technorati Tags: Air America, Al Franken, New York City, Evan Cohen, theft