TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS … VANISHED INTO THIN AIR
|| By FITSNEWS || Last weekend (yes, we post stuff on weekends) this website picked up a crazy story out of New York City – one originally broken by The Wall Street Journal.
The story revolved around Alexander Chatfield Burns, a white collar scam artist who held a Big Apple fundraiser for S.C. governor Nikki Haley in 2013. Of course while Burns and his buddies were lining Haley’s pockets with close to $30,000 in campaign cash, his private equity firm – Southport Lane Management LLC – was busy bilking a subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina (BCBSSC) out of a whopping $180 million.
BlueCross BlueShield wasn’t mentioned in The Wall Street Journal story, but it is the focus of a new report in The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier.
“(Company) holdings valued at nearly $180 million (were) swapped out for a hodgepodge of mostly obscure investments that have been found to be either difficult to value or entirely worthless,” the Post and Courier report revealed.
Wow …
Of course the Post and Courier story conveniently leaves out any reference to Haley. Or the fundraiser Burns held for her in New York. Or her connections to the company that got screwed.
Why? Good question … although the paper has a bad habit of protecting Palmetto politicians from bad press.
SC BlueCross BlueShield is intimately linked to Haley. In fact in 2010, Haley reportedly directed the firm to fire its longtime lobbyist – Larry Marchant – after he admitted to having an extramarital affair with Haley in 2008. Haley has denied the affair with Marchant (part of a blanket denial), although she was alluded to as the “other woman” in the divorce paperwork filed against Marchant by his ex-wife, Jennifer Marchant.
Oddly, the former subsidiary – which began working with Haley’s buddy in late 2012 – did not make a move to recover its losses until last week.
And they’re not suing Burns, they’re suing the bank which was supposed to act as a “third party referee” over the investments.
Yeah … is it just us or does this sound like the plot to Ocean’s Fourteen?
After a brief stay in a mental institution in New York, Burns wound up in downtown Charleston, S.C. – where he is currently residing.
Haley’s office told the WSJ she and Burns “didn’t discuss state business at the fundraiser, and he never sought help with insurance matters during the several times they met.”
As we noted in our original coverage, “if they didn’t discuss state business at the fundraiser, did they discuss it when they weren’t at the fundraiser? And if Burns never sought help from Haley during one of their ‘several’ face-to-face meetings, did he do so over the phone?”
Haley’s proximity to the key players in this heist is troubling … but we have no doubt the scandal will (like everything else) bounce right off of her. Especially seeing as the Post and Courier is already covering for her.
48 comments
From the P&C story: “About $86 million in assets were transferred into a handful of obscure businesses, with names like Vapor Holdings, Termite Offshore Services and Xtreme Gas & Oil”
“Vapor Holdings.” LOL.
Sounds legit to me.
LOL!
I don’t get it, what’s so funny?
Heard the obscure company that generated the biggest bonanza profit was named “Spontaneous Profits, Inc.”
They hold several companies that make vaporware.
Is there a company named Soybean Wind there?
So a crazy dude holds a political fundraiser and come to find out he’s a scoundrel. That’s news?
Larry Marchant didn’t ADMIT he had an affair with Gov. Haley. He CLAIMED to have an affair with Gov. Haley. Big difference. Larry is a LOBBYIST – so you can be sure he only speaks the truth.
For what it is worth, I knew about the Haley affair with Larry. I remember seeing text messages she sent to him. But she was just a junior member of the house, so how cared. This was way before she ran for gov.
Oh so he showed them to you? Or did he forward them to you? Why didn’t he make them public when he very publicly “claimed” to have had an affair with her? Either way is kinda weird, don’t ya think?
I saw them at the time. They were nothing special.Just a giggle. No saving or forwarding as they were insignificant.
No point to prove. Just thought I would mention it.
It’s rather juvenile to show your buddies emails from your married girlfriend for giggles.
Of course, you are correct. But affairs are, at their core, juvenile events.
Still a mystery as to why Larry would go to the media about an affair with Nikki Haley.
That is easy. He did not think she was fit to be governor.
So Larry sacrificed his good reputation and gave his wife some extra divorce ammunition for the love of South Carolina. Bless his heart.
I did not say it was wise, or mature. Just that it happened. I understand your comments completely.
Larry’s not young and stupid. He does everything for a reason. He is a “hired gun”. It’s sweet that you are taking up for your buddy. But your comments don’t answer the question.
Yes they do answer the question. You just don like my answer
That is not the way Marchant described it. He claimed a one night stand on a trip to China. No emails.
Why in the world would a lobbyist – who has to suck up to all politicians – foul his nest over claiming something that wasn’t true about any politician?
Blackmail.
He was helping his employer, Andre Bauer who was running against Haley.
you have a good memory
But at the price of his biggest client?! That whole episode was/is weird!
You forget that before the Palin endorsement, McMaster was first and Bauer was second. Before it was over Haley was first and Barrett was second.
https://www.fitsnews.com/2010/03/09/rasmussen-poll-mcmaster-leads-gop-governors-race/
If Haley was defeated, Marchant would have kept his job and might have been rewarded by the winner.
Ever hear of Solyndra???…Yet FITS sits there w/ his head up Obama’s @$$…
Yeah. Ever hear of General Motors – the one Mittens said should be allowed to fail and go through bankruptcy – then when face to face with The Rock Obama reversed course and said he advocated handing GM the exact way the The Rock Obama’s administration handled it. Ever hear of Boeing, which gets a cool $1.2 billion of our tax dollars? Ever hear of them? Seems like you have a selective memory issue there Grand T. Maybe if you eat more sea food from Red Lobster.
GM, the maker of Obama’s Chevy Volt (AKA Fire-starter-LMAO) is sucking billions of taxpayer dollars to save a company that Obama gave to the unions, after they crashed it…
Boeing takes millions, produces a successful, cutting-edge product…and returns billions and billions and billions in innovation, and more importantly…JOBS for South Carolinians…
PS: glad you now have my character sketch of you burned into your memory. It was far from my best effort…but it was pretty D*#n good..
.I still laugh about it when I think of you in that LeBron Jersey, and your fat-@$$#d family sitting up there w/ a cheesy biscuit hanging out of your mouth…LMAO….
A creative is MOST happy when he is creating…and that was artistic, to say the least…
Not to mention: I’ve been told I have the mind – and talent – of an FBI profiler…so I bet I came close to nailing you…for who, and what, you are….
“is sucking billions of taxpayer dollars” – wrong again on Oz. GM repaid the Federal government with interest. Boeing, on the other hand, doesn’t have to repay SC one dime. But I guess they don’t mention that on Drudge. Or Sludge, Or whatever. As for your FBI profile – guess you were profiling Osama Bin Laden for the Bush administration – that explains a lot of that failure. Aside from the weight part, where you were way off, if I’m a liberal I wouldn’t own a Suburban or a Tahoe – you idiot. I’d own say a Prius, or maybe a Subaru, or some foreign SUV that gets great gas milage, or – if I’m truly a yuppie liberal liar – I’d probably be sliding my ass into a nice BMW. You’re so far off if the world was flat you’d have fallen off. But it was entertaining. They say artists and writers often write of themselves. So we know where you got your starting point. Ha!
Don’t feed the trolls
“…Burns wound up in downtown Charleston, S.C. – where he is currently residing.”
Is he friends/partners with that other GOP bundler who moved from NY to Charleston – Mallory Factor?
Factor has parlayed his SCGOP connections to various dual, triple, who knows how many, office holding after various Haley appointments to boards and/or commissions.
And, remember his dealings – using Curtis Loftis’ name – with one of the hedge funds that the idiots on the SC Retirement System Investment Board invest in which made the hedge funder feel like he was being shaken down?
There is a connection here with the investment commission. The assets were “dumped” using the services of a former investment commission staffer, that just happens to still be associated with a Reynolds Williams.
Lots of money was made off that deal and prominent South Carolinians made tons of it.
Wasn’t Marchant a partner with Haley in Topper-Bottomly Holdings?
You were warned about Haley numerous times!!!
Also:
Mark Sanford
Danny Frazier
James Metts
Bob Peeler
Richard Eckstrom
Thomas Ravenel
Did you listen? Not Hardly…an awful mistake you made and keep making, over and over!
Actual funny names of companies—–
http://www.businessinsider.com/funniest-company-names-2012-6?op=1
… add Big Ass Fans (with a company review in this weeks Forbes).
Is it true that the original name suggested for this site was – “FistNews” ?
The dude with the camera seems focused on the guvner’s ass.
I see he’s using a wide angle lens.
Alexander Chatfield Burns
Doesn’t he own a nuclear plant somewhere?
nah, that’s his brother Monty.
Gosh!
Doesn’t anyone in SC politics have a BS detector? It seems that the linkages between your poli-wogs and scam artists just keeps on comin’.
It can’t be the dumbing down of/by the local education system and common core is still just a “teachers” Union pipe-dream in the South, isn’t it?
… Or are they all just gullible lawyers? (I’ve met some really smart lawyers who would bite an un-baited hook.)
And, you don’t even know the half of it.
Does anyone expect anything else from people who are associates of Queen Haley.
Haley’s out right bribery by Lexington Hospital is still on the table. As such, this rip off of Blue Cross by these characters fits her pattern. Plus, a lot of other thieves are being indicted for this exact type of Fraud this week in New York. That is, using worthless assets to justify large investment pools in which they take out massive fees for running them into the ground. Haley and bribery, just seem to go together.