PHILIPSBURG--Husang Ansary, chairman of Mullet Bay Resort's owning company SunResorts, was mentioned in several leading US newspapers over the weekend as a possible party to an illegal scheme of financing a political campaign in 1996. Ansary, a former minister and ambassador in the regime of the late Shah of Persia (Iran), was quoted as denying any wrongdoing.
Federal investigators probing fund-raising activities surrounding the 1996 campaign of Robert Torricelli's running in New Jersey for the US Senate hit on donations made by Ansary and thirteen employees of IRI International Corp, an oil field equipment company at that time owned by Ansary.
Two of those employees told investigators they had been solicited (by Ansary) to contribute to the Torricelli campaign and were later reimbursed by the company. US federal law prohibits such repayment.
The legal limit for private donations is set at US $2,000 each. Reimbursing others for campaign contributions, or making contributions in their name, is illegal and treated by the Justice Department as money-laundering.
Ansary and his wife each donated US $2,000 when asked for financing of his campaign by Torricelli. The former ambassador told newspaper reporters he had suggested to employees of his Houston based IRI company that they give to Torricelli too. Forty thousand dollars from people associated with IRI flowed into Torricelli's coffers, most of it on the same day.
The Washington Post just before the weekend reported that two of the IRI employees, William Hallerberg and Thomas Etheredge, had told the FBI they had been pressured in donating and had subsequently been reimbursed.
Both men said the company had also reimbursed them for donations to other campaigns, including presidential candidate Bob Dole and Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York.
Other employees said they had paid of their own volition and denied they had been reimbursed.
Hallerberg said in an interview with The Washington Post that he had been strongly solicited to write a cheque and told that, at the end of the year, it would be covered by a bonus. He said he had been told "the ambassador really likes you, he likes you enough that he wants you to donate two thousand dollars."
Hallerberg said he didn't want to write a cheque and informed Ansary by letter of this. The letter was intercepted by a company official who told him it was in his best interest to tear it up. He paid and was reimbursed. Hallerberg turned over the letter to the FBI in October last year.
Ansary, who became an American citizen in 1986, has a long history of contributing large sums to political parties. According to all available press reports, he has denied any political agenda and any wrongdoing.
He was quoted in one newspaper explaining his largesse stating "In my later years, which are these days, my philanthropic issues and my interest in political issues keep expanding. As my business interests are looking less important to me, I have decided that it's time for me to pay back for all the success I have enjoyed."
Efforts by The Daily Herald to reach Ansary yesterday were not successful. His office in Houston, Texas, said he was travelling.
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