Did Staples Founder & Romney friend toss Mitt a lifeline in exchange for criminal case dismissal?
After a bit of research, I came across some interesting Quid Pro Quo from Romney's time as governor:
As we all know, Romney, while working at Bain, provided "Tom Stemberg" with the venture capital necessary to start "Staples" in 1986 (I can't confirm, but it appears Romney and Stemberg were already friends at the time).
Years later, after Romney became governor of Massachusetts, he was widely criticized for not preventing a November 2003 merger between Proctor & Gamble and Gillette that cost the state of Massachusetts 4,000 jobs. Months later, Stemberg... now the head of "Citizens Financial Group" and recently merged with "Charter One Bank"... threw Romney a lifeline, proposing a "jobs program" in which CFG offered Small Business loans at just 2.5% (the going rate at the time was 5.5%) to anyone promising to create "one job for every $25,000 borrowed". CFG appears to have agreed to assume ALL the risk, asking nothing in return. Naturally, the Romney administration jumped at the deal.
The next year, CFG was indicted for "fraud" on an unrelated issue (see story at link below), and with my limited resources, I can find no verdict in the case nor if it even went to trial.
To make matters worse, the year after that (2005), two former employees of CFG (and three others) were indicted for Insider Trading, profiting off advance knowledge of the "Charter One" merger which they learned from "a friend" still working at CFG. The verdict in that case was not passed (delayed?) until 2009.
It all seems rather suspicious and should be followed up on.
http://mugsysrapsheet.com/2012/05/28/romney-has-a-post-bain-record-lets-look-at-it/
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