Nation in brief: Clinton backer accused of fraud
NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors have charged a wealthy fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top Democrats in an alleged $292 million Ponzi scheme that spanned more than a decade, saying he used some of the proceeds to support election campaigns.
In an indictment returned Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Hassan Nemazee is charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
He used some of the proceeds of the fraud to make donations to the election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates as well as to political action committees and charities, prosecutors said. They didn’t name the candidates or groups.
Nemazee served as national finance chairman for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and later raised money for President Barack Obama after Clinton’s defeat. He also was Sen. John Kerry’s finance chairman in New York for his 2004 bid for president.
Storms, floods ravage Southeast
ATLANTA – Floodwaters ripped apart a west Georgia trailer home, drowning a 2-year-old boy swept from his father’s arms. In Atlanta, stranded motorists scrambled to the tops of their car as waters rose on one of the city’s busiest highways. To the north, crews worked furiously to shore up a levee holding a surging river back from an isolated town.
Storms pounded the Southeast on Monday, killing six people across the region, including five in the Atlanta area. Aerial shots showed schools, football fields, even entire neighborhoods submerged by the deluge, sending some residents scurrying for higher ground.
The storm came after days of rain pounded the region. Some parts of Georgia have had more than 20 inches since Friday.
Smith’s doctors received warnings
LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles pharmacist told Anna Nicole Smith’s internist that the drugs he had prescribed to the model after her son died were “pharmaceutical suicide,” and refused to fill the prescriptions.
According to unsealed documents obtained Monday by the Los Angeles Times, Smith’s doctors were warned about prescription drugs by three pharmacists.
The investigation focuses on the role that Smith’s doctors, psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich and internist Sandeep Kapoor, had in her overdose death in February 2007.
The physicians and Smith’s boyfriend, attorney Howard K. Stern, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to illegally provide her with controlled substances.