New Mexico ex-governor Bill Richardson covered up scheme to fund 'sexual services and favors', lawsuit claims
Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has been accused of covering up a scheme he allegedly used to fund “sexual services and favors” while serving in the top post. A newly unsealed lawsuit has brought the accusation into the open, according to a new report.
KOB 4, An NBC affiliate in New Mexico, reported earlier in September that in 2008, a lawsuit accused Richardson to be the mastermind of an operation that cheated NM’s taxpayers. It said: “Richardson obtained money for himself; money for his campaigns; money for his political organizations; lavish meals, entertainment, and travel; wine and liquor, sexual services and sexual favors.”
As per the report, in 2009, the US Attorney over New Mexico said there was a federal probe into the charges against Richardson but no one was ever indicted. NM’s Attorney General Hector Balderas also found his name dragged into the issue as lawyers claimed that Richardson helped to fund the former’s political campaigns with money that he got from his dubious schemes but Balderas’s office denied the charges as “baseless” and “ridiculous.”
Richardon accused of using office to cover up scheme
In a new suit that was filed in May and unsealed last week, the 72-year-old Democrat has been accused of using his official power to cover up the scheme and even trying to construct the probe, according to Daily Mail that obtained the recently unsealed complaint.
The lawsuit claims that Richardson ran a scam dubbed the ‘Richardson Ring’ which saw him benefiting from the money he used from business investments into NM in the early 2000s. “The greedy politician lined his own pockets with cash, used some money to fund his political campaigns and organizations and also enjoyed lavish meals, wine and liquor as well as luxury travel and entertainment,” the legal filing claims, reports Daily Mail.
Richardson served as the governor between January 2003 to January 2010 and he was also the chairman of the State Investment Council (SIC) during this time. The public scandal that followed forced the SIC to begin a probe in state investment business and Richardson. The suit filed in May alleged that the former governor oversaw his scheme getting a sophisticated cover-up. According to it, Richardson placed his people in state government jobs to cover-up his actions. “As Governor, Bill Richardson controlled the hiring of all state employees in the executive branch. He used his control to carry out corruption, and to cover it up,” it said.
The May suit was brought on behalf of the State of New Mexico by Frank Foy and John Casey under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act and sought damages from the former governor and many of his alleged assistants. When Richardson's office was approached for a response, his spokesperson Maddy Mahony called the lawsuit “ludicrous and unfounded” and “politically motivated.”
The current allegations are not the first that has brought Richardson into a negative focus. Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre alleged in the past that she was asked to have sex with the former governor by Epstein and his alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell. Richardson denied the charge.