* The Sun-Times has a front-page story today about another Bruce Rauner company, this one called Synagro Technologies Inc., which was involved in the corruption probe that eventually sent Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to prison for 28 years…
Getting a far shorter term after cooperating with the feds was an executive for Synagro Technologies Inc., a company based in Houston. The executive, James Rosendall, pleaded guilty to bribery in 2009 and testified in Kilpatrick’s trial last year, describing his role in what he called “the pay-to-play thing going on in the city of Detroit.”
Rosendall’s push on Synagro’s behalf intensified in 2007. That was shortly before the company won a billion-dollar sludge contract from Detroit officials — and not long after GTCR had divested its majority stake in Synagro.
But court records show Rosendall’s efforts to sway Kilpatrick and other Detroit leaders dated back several years, to the middle of the period when GTCR controlled Synagro.
GTCR first invested in Synagro in 2000, eventually holding a majority stake in the company. Rauner and his partners did not cash out completely until 2006.
Chartered jets to Las Vegas, paying off the mayor’s father to get city business, etc. And, of course, GTCR cashed out just in time. Go read the whole thing.
* Rauner’s campaign basically claimed that Rauner wasn’t on the board and that GTCR were merely investors…
In a statement, Rauner campaign spokesman Mike Schrimpf said, “Bruce was never on the board at Synagro and, as investors, GTCR would not have been aware of the individual actions of every employee of a nationwide company. What Mr. Rosendall did was clearly wrong, and Bruce believes he was rightfully prosecuted and convicted.”
* Well, a quick Google search found a January, 2000 press release entilted: “Synagro Announces New Financial Partners”…
“My management team and I are delighted to be partnering with GTCR,” said Ross Patten, Synagro’s Chairman and CEO. “GTCR offers a valuable and proven perspective that will be helpful as we execute our growth strategies, including making and integrating additional acquisitions.”
“Synagro is a leader in the fragmented and growing residuals management industry,” noted David A. Donnini, principal of GTCR.”With Ross Patten’s vision and proven leadership, Synagro has the potential to grow exponentially and represents an exciting investment opportunity for our investors.” Mr. Donnini and Vincent J. Hemmer, also of GTCR, will join Synagro’s Board of Directors in connection with the GTCR Financing.
Emphasis added for obvious reasons.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Quinn campaign response…
A sludge company controlled by GTCRauner has been exposed today for its direct ties to the bribery scandal that took down the mayor of Detroit.
It was one of the biggest public corruption prosecutions in American history and a Rauner-controlled sludge company was found to have bribed former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in a case that became known as “Kilpatrick Inc.”
Below is the statement of Quinn for Illinois Press Secretary Izabela Miltko in response to the breaking news:
“Bruce Rauner’s existing ties to pay-to-play politics have been overshadowed by the news that executives of a firm he controlled bribed a sitting mayor to get contracts.
“To date, Mr. Rauner has taken no responsibility for his troubling business record of corruption, fraud and mismanagement. But he has always taken the profits.
“GTCRauner was in the driver’s seat at Synagro. As such, Rauner must account for the criminal actions committed under his leadership and in his company’s name, while he was in control.
“Bruce Rauner has a duty now to make available the full criminal record and internal documents describing his and his company’s actions in this bribery case.
“Mr. Rauner has made his business experience his chief qualification to be governor. Now we learn of his company’s direct oversight of bribery and corruption, and Mr. Rauner must explain.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** More Quinn react…
News breaking today that GTCRauner was in control of a Houston-based sludge company in the period it began bribing the former mayor of Detroit, in one of the biggest public corruption cases in modern American history, has raised troubling new questions.
1. Did Bruce Rauner and his partners know about and/or approve the bribes to Kilpatrick Inc.? If not, how did they account for the massive sums of money spent on the criminal enterprise?
2. Were Bruce Rauner or his partners ever contacted by the FBI about the bribes and criminal conduct at Synagro?
3. Will Bruce Rauner make available to the public any internal reviews or reports about the criminal activities at Synagro and of its executives?
4. In Lason, Bruce Rauner was associated with one of the largest accounting frauds in American history. Now, in Synagro, he has ties to one of the largest public corruption cases in American history. With that magnitude of scandals happening under his watch, why should voters think that Mr. Rauner would do any better of a job overseeing the State of Illinois?
- wndycty - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:44 am:
It’s funny that Rauner does not want to be held accountable for the actions of companies that he invested in and/or served on the boards of, yet he does want to hold Quinn (as we all should) accountable for happens in various state agencies.
Rauner can’t have it both ways. His oversight of the companies he invested in and/or served on the boards of, tells us a lot about what his management style would be as our state’s chief executive.
- anon - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:44 am:
Does Schrimpf ever get tired of spewing the same lame response to every one of these scandals? Seriously, how can he look himself in the mirror each morning knowing he is lying for his lying boss and trying to buy an election?
- truthteller - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:49 am:
Is there any business Rauner touched that didn’t have the taint of corruption? Electing him would be the same as making a former Enron executive the Director of Energy.
Maybe Rauner rails against government corruption because he doesn’t think we have enough.
- VM - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:54 am:
Echoing wndycty:
“Bruce was never on the board at Synagro and, as investors, GTCR would not have been aware of the individual actions of every employee of a nationwide company.”
And yet Rauner wants voters to hold Quinn responsible for the actions of every individual employee of the State.
It makes me wonder if what Rauner means when he says he will run government like a business is that he will dodge responsibility.
- Irked - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:55 am:
If we were to balance the times where Quinn has had failed in his role as Governor, and the times where Rauner has failed in his role as…Whatever convenient title he has at the given moment… Rauner would win hands down.
- Grandson of Man - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:55 am:
I also read the story this morning and posted about it in Rich’s music thread. I instantly regretted it, because I felt that I shouldn’t soil something so beautiful with this negative stuff.
Rauner is fond of calling other people corrupt but didn’t know or care about what was happening in his companies. He called the unions corrupt because they exercise their right to contribute money to politicians.
Rauner offered a copout explanation about his companies’ bad dealings by saying that not everything can be controlled. Is that what he would bring to government, and how is this attitude different than the problems we’ve had with government corruption?
- Irked - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:56 am:
To clarify, “winning” means being far more incompetant.
- Frenchie Mendoza - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 9:56 am:
Scary good interview about Rauner here:
http://wuis.org/post/bruce-rauner-he-was-candidate-author-interview
One of the most insightful, careful analyses of Rauner I’ve heard. It’s disturbing — but not in the way you’d expect. It’s a little lengthy, but it’s definitely worth a listen — especially for the quote at the end about liking “Rauner less after learning this stuff about him”.
Fascinating.
- walker - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:02 am:
We all get the “high-risk=high-reward” idea in finance. GTCR built a reputation for high returns with less than expected risk for their own investors.
Should we add:
traipsing along the edges of the law,
bailing out on accountability,
keeping outside investors in the dark,
abusing employees and consumers
to the equation for GTCR?
- Langhorne - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:04 am:
After a while the stink just doesn’t go away.
GTCR always cashes out in the nick of time, their board members are there for expansion and debt but not the crash, and bruce was disappointed but knew nothing. I thought they were all hands on. With 50,000 (?) state and university employees bruce could have lots of people to blame for any problems. You would think they would be embarrassed to keep telling us the monster ate the cookies.
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:18 am:
The best way for Rauner to address these issues is to show us where he and GTCR made a positive difference for people.
He needs to acknowledge the failures, then steer attention to the successes. His year long focus on Quinn’s and Government’s failings, didn’t sell those voters who worship government and accept its repeated failures, to him.
Rauner needs to have done that.
Challengers need to do more than challenge - they have to balance it with positive messages as well.
Both campaigns have really failed to convince voters that their candidate can do the job they are asking for. Their relentless negative attacks have stripped them of the ability to do the job even when they get elected.
The horrible problems we see with all these negative campaigns is how they tear down our means of choosing leaders and governing afterwards. If you tire of the partisanship and nastiness, you have to begin demanding an end to these smear campaigns that don’t raise anyone up so that they can lead, if elected.
- yo - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:19 am:
Unreal. I think if I was Bruce Rauner I would have had enough sense to live out my days with my billions, without anybody knowing how it was exactly I made them. Cause the way he made them sure was sketchy
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:21 am:
==“Bruce was never on the board at Synagro and, as investors, GTCR would not have been aware of the individual actions of every employee of a nationwide company. What Mr. Rosendall did was clearly wrong, and Bruce believes he was rightfully prosecuted and convicted.”==
Isn’t this sort of the same thing Quinn is saying about the IDOT thing and NRI? I wonder if the Rauner people understand the hypocritical nature of this statement. Mr. Rauner didn’t know everything that was going on so it’s not his fault. Pay Quinn didn’t know everything that was going on but it is his fault. Got it. That’s clear as mud.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:22 am:
Sorry. “Pat” Quinn. Freudian slip? lol
- zatoichi - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 10:37 am:
Doesn’t Rauner have 5-6 companies which have done a great job and are very successful? What keeps coming up are ‘cash out just in time’, ‘I did not know that happened’, and more lawsuits. Except for his money, what is really different between Quinn and Rauner? Quinn’s record is public and Rauner’s is becoming public even if he never planned on it.
- Tim Snopes - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:10 am:
Now that Rauner had been exposed as a hustler rather than a “businessman”, it’s time to bring back one of the Careerfellas he so adequately demonized during the primary.
Does the GOP really want to go all the way with this guy? They should be at least a little disappointed that Rauner successfully bought the Party, demonized its key leaders and is now buying loyalty in the House and Senate.
Hoo Boy.
- Walter Mitty - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:22 am:
How long til update X2…? From the Rauner campaign.. This is all blah blah to take the eye off of next weeks testimony…to prove blah blah…Corrupt career… Blah blah…What comes out next week or doesn’t is all that matters now. It is in fact, October.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:24 am:
–He needs to acknowledge the failures, then steer attention to the successes. –
From the GTCR standpoint, I wouldn’t assume that they were failures or not part of the business plan. You don’t have to run a successful business o make money.
You can’t pull the Sgt. Schultz act when you control a company and put your v.p. of “business development” in charge of the Kwame Kilpatrick account.
Kwame was open for business on Day One, and everybody knew it. The only surprise was how long it took the feds to get around to him, because once they did, it was shooting fish in a barrel. Not very discreet or clever about it.
- VM - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:24 am:
@Frenchie Mendoza — interesting link.
But at the risk of sounding overly critical, that is just a painful interview to listen to. Not the content, but all the pauses, false starts to sentences, mixed up rhetoric, etc. Carol Felsenthal is a good writer, but not so good in that interview.
That said, there are interesting nuggets in that interview that didn’t make the article she wrote in Chicago magazine.
- Norseman - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:39 am:
Maybe a reporter should ask Raunervich who’s going to shake-up GTCR. At a minimum it looks like it has a corporate ethics problem.
- plutocrat03 - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:40 am:
“about the IDOT thing and NRI”
a difference is that PQ created the IDOT and NRI situations to personally benefit himself and his party with taxpayer money.
Move over Rod, you may have company coming…….
- A guy... - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:46 am:
These sound alike. It sounds like the same story being repeated. With that much business and reach, they’ll be able to find a number of less than perfect outcomes. But they sound alike to people. Not an excuse, an observation.
- Precinct Captain - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 12:00 pm:
==- plutocrat03 - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 11:40 am:==
So, you are saying that Bruce Rauner and his cronies DID NOT create the massive financial fraud, bribery, and looting to personally enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and taxpayers? L. O. L.
- DuPage Bard - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 12:41 pm:
Another day another claim.
At some point he’s got to answer. If not then Quinn keeps hitting and eventually the knees will fall out from under Bruce. With everything he knows about Quinn and where this state is going, how is his team not able to deliver a knockout blow? If NVI or IDOT was the best punch thrown then there are some serious issues with his folks.
Find the left hook and start with the haymakers.
- Mason born - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 1:11 pm:
wndycty
The corollary is alos tru PQ wants to blame Rauner for every failure while blaming any state issues on subordinates.
- Demoralized - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 1:29 pm:
@plutocrat:
So it’s ok for Rauner to see he didn’t know about things but not for Quinn. I see. Certainly no double standard there.
- Living in Machiaville - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 2:09 pm:
The more I hear, the more I think Rauner will be able to handle the Illinois political jungle just fine. This ain’t no mamby-pamby Indiana. We want a guy who can scrap with the likes of Madigan and “the machine”. Show me a governor who is squeaky clean and I’ll show you one who will never cut it here in the land of dirty politics.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 2:43 pm:
Did Schrimpf finally just throw in the towel? No response at all?
- Western Ave. Doug - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 2:54 pm:
==Did Schrimpf finally just throw in the towel? No response at all?==
Why bother? Overplay is overplay, and IMO Quinn is overplaying this. Did he really think no one would find out? LOL
- walker - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 3:00 pm:
When do the current partners and investors of GTCR start pounding on Rauner for dragging the whole company out into the negative spotlight?
They might have to form a new company with a completely different name, move all the best assets, and sell the ashes of GTCR to the janitor.
- Frenchie Mendoza - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 3:00 pm:
Rauner wants to be president. So he has to slog through this.
He loses — he’ll go back to giving away money. That might do more good for the state.
- Rauner Responsibility - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 3:24 pm:
this is a hugely negative story that speaks to his ability to oversee government and root out corruption. the problem? at his own company- he didn’t root out corruption- he says hear no evil / speak no evil / — yet he took the cash just in time.
- Chris - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 6:36 pm:
“this is a hugely negative story that speaks to his ability to oversee government and root out corruption. ”
I think you meant to put this in one of the IDOT or NRI posts.
No? Sure sounds like an indictment of Quinn to me.
- Been there - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 8:51 pm:
I hope that we never have to experience Illinois being run as a business.
“- walker - Wednesday, Oct 1, 14 @ 3:00 pm:
When do the current partners and investors of GTCR start pounding on Rauner for dragging the whole company out into the negative spotlight?”
They might have to form a new company with a completely different name, move all the best assets, and sell the ashes of GTCR to the janitor.
Walker is correct and I think there is soo much bad publicity waiting for Rauner that he will have a hard time as governor if elected, as he is compromised from the start. Then there are probably going to be gobs of investigations and lawsuits that involve GTCR. Only the lawyers will win.
- Carhart Representative - Thursday, Oct 2, 14 @ 7:54 am:
Bruce Rauner is a very successful business man who made his money doing…well we’re really not allowed to say due to pending litigation.