Carlyle Group Admits Role In "Pay to Play" Scandal

Source: ABC News

Politically-Connected Firm Admits Payments of $13 Million to Indicted Middleman to Get New York State Business

The Carlyle Group, a giant Wall Street firm best known for its ties to former President George H.W. Bush and other prominent public officials, made more than $13 million in payments to a indicted political fixer who arranged for the firm to receive business from a New York pension fund, New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo said today.

Cuomo said Carlyle had agreed to $20 million to "resolve its role" in the ongoing corruption investigation and agreed to a new code of conduct that prohibits the use of such middlemen.

Cuomo said the code would "help eliminate the conflicts of interest and corruption inherent in a system that allows people to buy access to those holding the pension fund purse-strings."

Carlyle is the latest high-profile firm to be ensnared in a nationwide probe known as the "pay for play" scandal because Wall Street firms allegedly paid politically-connected fixers to get them business from pension funds controlled by public officials.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=7586756&page=1

so sweet and innocent!!

Insert your own sarcasm sign here

So that $20 million is still less than the fees it received. The moral: even if you get caught, you may still come out ahead, if you can do a deal.

Plus they get to play with almost a trillion of retirement fund assets.

when what you have to pay out in bribes and fines is less than you make in profits from your criminal activity.... sigh

Most large companies will weigh the profits and liabilities the same way when marketing a new product. New drugs with dangerous known side-effects and new cars with cheap, OEM parts are a prime example. As long as the bean counters say the cost of clean-up and fines will be less then the profit, it's a go.

It's $$$ over people, every time. As stated in "The Corporation", corporations are, by definition, sociopathic entities.

How deep these criminals are into it.. really.. That 13 mill fell out of the sofa cushions..

to those bastards.