Ethics Complaints Have Plagued “Beto” & His Family Over A Decade
John Griffing
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In part two of our three-part series about 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s criminal history, we now look at his ethics file, which contains some definite red flags for voters, according to research by Big League Politics.
O’Rourke’s father-in-law, William Sanders, is one of the lead architects for the Paso Del Norte Group, a private consortium that is based in El Paso, but also does business in the drug cartel-saturated Ciudad Juarez region of Mexico.
The family refuses to make relevant documents public and keeps all business records sealed. The group is known to participate in heavily influential ways in the restructuring plans of El Paso. Beto is repeatedly accused, but denies, allegations conflict of interest pertaining to Paso Del Norte.
In 2006, a voter filed a complaint, for example, naming then-El Paso City Councilman Beto O’Rourke and his family for potential conflicts of interest with redevelopment plans, also citing abuses of eminent domain powers:
O’Rourke had initially agreed and supported the plan for redevelopment of the area, but voters threatened a recall election, and he “abstained” from the vote, avoiding any serious consequences.
One major problem with the plan arose from possible displacement of the persons in the area.
IRS Convicts O’Rourke’s Family Business For Tax Fraud, Laundering
Beto O’Rourke’s mother, Melissa, ran a furniture store based in El Paso called Charlotte’s Inc. that was busted by the IRS for processing large cash payments and then reporting it inaccurately in order to avoid paying taxes on the suspicious cash.
The company pled guilty to accusations that it had restructured transactions in order to present relatively large cash payments as having been made in installments of less than $10,000. Anti-money laundering provisions of U.S. law require that a business reveal the identity of any individual who makes a cash payment above that threshold.
Charlotte and its employees illegally restructured $630,000 in payments, all from one customer, between May 2005 and October 2006. The identity of that customer is not known. U.S. District Court judge Kathleen Cardone gave a sentence of five years’ probation and a $500,000 fine, with $250,000 suspended.
The article also referenced the following details from court proceedings and documents:
Charlotte’s, Inc., represented by its owner Melissa O’Rourke, pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to a one count Information charging the company with structuring transactions involving more than $630,000 in order to evade financial reporting requirements…
…
O’Rourke admitted that on 15 different occasions from May 2005-Oct. 2006 one or more of the company’s employees separated cash transactions for merchandise with each transaction ranging from $22,000 to $50,000. Each transaction was separated into multiple receipts.
No receipt amounted to more than $10,000 so that IRS reporting requirements could be avoided.
Details about a potential money-laundering operation, or where the unreported money went were never referenced, and the business shuttered in August of 2017.
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