Will Bachmann and Romney post bail money for their fraudster donor pal 'Bobby Thompson?'

Bachmann and Romney donor "Bobby Thompson"

By Karl Bremer

The same week the fugitive and big-spending Republican Party contributor-on-the-lam known as “Bobby Thompson” was captured in Portland, OR, by federal marshals after a nationwide manhunt, one of the recipients of “Thompson’s” largesse, Michele Bachmann, endorsed another—Mitt Romney—for president.

Coincidence—or an attempt by the now-amorous politicians to divert attention from their connection to what may be one of the largest charity scams in U.S. history?

“Thompson” donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and Republican Party entities, all of it suspected to be skimmed from his fraudulent charity, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association.  He donated $10,000 to Michele Bachmann’s congressional campaign in 2010 and $2,300 to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2007. In an attempt to wash her hands of the dirty money in the glare of unwelcome publicity over the donation, Bachmann donated her campaign's share of the donation to two legitimate veterans’ organizations. The Republican Party of Minnesota kept their share of the donation from "Thompson."

Federal authorities believe "Thompson" may have raised close to $100 million through his fraudulent scheme, which operated in up to 40 states, including Minnesota. Little of the money raised was ever spent on veterans as it was claimed.

After “Thompson” was captured April 30, authorities found $1 million in cash in two suitcases in an Oregon storage locker rented by “Thompson.” Numerous birth certificates and other forms of ID also were stashed in the locker.

Federal and state authorities still do not know the true identity of “Bobby Thompson,” who was carrying several persons’ identification on him when he was arrested,

The Minnesota chapter of the U.S. Navy Veterans Association raised more than $1.5 million from 2003-2009. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has declined to investigate the charity. However the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board fined “Thompson” $21,000 for fraudulent campaign contributions made to Minnesota candidates.

“Thompson” is the subject of a chapter in the book “The Madness of Michele Bachmann: A Broad-Minded Survey of a Small-Minded Candidate,” co-authored by myself and Ken Avidor and Eva Young of DumpBachmann.com.

Bachmann $10K donor and fraudster-on-the-lam "Bobby Thompson" captured by feds

By Karl Bremer

The fraudster-on-the-lam known as “Bobby Thompson,” one of Michele Bachmann’s largest political donors in 2010 and the target of a nationwide manhunt, was captured at an undisclosed West Coast location around 11 p.m. April 30 and now is in federal custody. He was wanted on fraud, identity theft, money laundering and other charges.

The Tampa Bay Times, which sparked the federal investigation into “Thompson” and his fraudulent charity the U.S. Navy Veterans Association, reported his capture. “Thompson” had been on the run since 2009.

“Thompson” allegedly ran a chapter of his sham charity in Minnesota from 2003-2009 that collected over $1.5 million from unsuspecting Minnesotans using nothing more than a UPS drop box and a forwarded telephone recording for an office.

I won Second Place for “Best Use of Public Records” in the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists 2011 Page One Awards for my lengthy investigative series on “Minnesota and the Man Known as Bobby Thompson” that was published on the DumpBachmann.com blog and RippleInStillwater.com. The series detailed the Minnesota operations of “Thompson” and was prompted by my discovery of his $10,000 donation to Michele Bachmann’s2010 congressional campaign at an event featuring former half-term Alaskan governor Sarah Palin.

Last year, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board fined “Thompson” $21,000 for illegal campaign contributions made to other Minnesota Republicans. The contributions were made under the names “Bobby Thompson” and “Maria D’Annuzio” to the Minnesota House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC), the Republican-leaning Patriot PAC run by GOP political operative Joey Gerdin, the Seifert for Governor Committee, and Citizens for David Carlson Committee, 67B, another GOP candidate committee.

The fines were the result of an investigation into a complaint filed by myself with the CFB in July 2010 that alleged illegal campaign contributions by “Thompson.” The state attorney general’s office has declined to investigate “Thompson” and his Minnesota charity, despite overshelming evidence that it was a scam.

“Thompson” is the subject of a chapter in the book “The Madness of MicheleBachmann: A Broad-Minded Survey of a Small-Minded Candidate,” co-authored by myself and Ken Avidor and Eva Young of DumpBachmann.com. 

Milk carton graphic by Ken Avidor

The gonzo piano genius of James Carroll Booker III

James Carroll Booker III, left, and Reggie Scanlan

at Orleans Parish Prison.

New Orleans bassist Reggie Scanlan talks
about playing with the Bayou Maharajah

Few would argue that James Carroll Booker III belongs in the upper echelon of New Orleans’ piano geniuses—and there have been plenty.

A lot of paths led me to the brilliance of Booker, not the least of which was my favorite band from New Orleans, the Radiators, whose repertoire and rhythms drew considerably from Booker. Longtime friend and Radiators bassist Reggie Scanlan, who is currently recovering from surgery for pancreatic cancer, played with Booker for several years in the late ‘70s before the Radiators coagulated to become New Orleans’ longest running rock band over the next three decades.

Scanlan recollected on his experiences playing with Booker in this interview originally published in Beat Street Magazine, a fine but short-lived literary magazine about New Orleans music and street culture, in 2003.

By Karl Bremer

Radiators bassist Reggie Scanlan was still wet behind the ears when he got tapped to play with James Booker.

“It was 1975,” Scanlan recalls, “and I got a call from someone connected with Dr. John’s management, says ‘Hey, man, James Booker is moving back to New Orleans and is having a gig on Mother’s Day. Do you wanna play?’ It was at a black gay bar in the Quarter.”

Scanlan jumped at it. “From that first phone call, I knew it was a total opportunity. The guy was such a legend, I knew I could learn something if I could just hang on. … You knew you had heard his stuff but you really didn’t know much about him. You had heard some of these outrageous stories about him.”

The day before the gig, Booker met the band—Scanlan, Web Burrell on drums and “Squirrel” on congas—for the first time for rehearsal. “So Booker shows up and he’s—man, he’s kinda crazy,” Scanlan chuckles. “Obviously flamboyantly gay, he’s got this huge wig on and the eye patch on—he’s a riot!

“He starts warming up and my jaw dropped to the ground. The guy was unbelievable. Even then, I felt that bands really slowed this guy down. No matter who was playing with him, he was, like, ‘Man, I got places to go.’ At the end of the rehearsal, he says, ‘Let’s meet tomorrow before the gig, 5 o’clock, and we’ll go over some more stuff.’”

That left Scanlan with some degree of comfort. After all, getting up to speed with the likes of Booker wasn’t an overnight thing—especially for someone who describes himself at the time as “still just learning the bare-bones basics of how to play.”

The next night, 5 o’clock came and went and no sign of Booker. Eight o’clock on the bandstand—the gig’s starting time—came and went and still no sign of Booker.

"He shows up at 8:15, 8:30,” Scanlan says. “It kinda put me on edge. When he came in, he had this little toiletry bag, he had the wig, the eye patch, stick pin. They were oohin’ and aahin’ over Booker. The stage was about the size of a desk. It sounded pretty cool, and as we started going along, he starts flirting with this guy. They started flirting back and forth, and all of a sudden he takes off his eye patch and takes another one out and puts it on, looks at me and says ‘How does this look?’ And turns around and without missing a beat keeps playing.”

Scanlan played with Booker on and off over the next five years, with Booker almost always on piano, until his regular gig with the Radiators got too busy. Like his time playing with ‘Fess, Scanlan says, “It was a real education playing with Booker. There were some nights that were just amazing—you couldn’t believe it. And other nights were sheer hell, because he just kind of went over the top.”

One big difference between ‘Fess and Booker, at least from a bassist’s perspective, was the role of the left hand.

“With ‘Fess, his left hand was a monster,” explains Scanlan. “A bass was almost superfluous. Booker’s left hand was lighter, so you had a little more room to move.”

Booker’s uncanny ability to string together medleys out of thin air was particularly challenging, says Scanlan, but it was also what made playing with Booker such a phenomenal learning experience.

“It was a job just keeping up and being ready for anything … The way he could link things that were so disparate—“Iko” into Mozart into Sinatra into Beatles—and it always made sense. … His fingers would just kind of float all over the keyboards, but he had total command of his hands. He was just so buoyant.”

Scanlan recalls one of his more bizarre gigs with Booker inside Orleans Parish Prison, part of a concert series the prison put on.

“It was the Earl Turbinton Quartet and Booker. Earl’s band is going to back up Booker, and I’m going to play, Vidacovich. We get down to park the car and Booker starts reaching down in his pants and pulling out this huge bag of pot. ‘I just wanna make sure it don’t fall outa my pants,’ Booker says. ‘You’re not gonna take that in there?’ someone asks him. ‘Oh yeah, it’s no problem for me,’ he says.”

“We get inside and Booker says, ‘I wanna take you around and show you the cells I used to stay in. I said ‘No, thanks, man.’ … He had his own little rooting section in there.”

Scanlan recorded on some sessions with Booker, but the best one has never seen the light of day.

Allen Toussaint produced the spontaneous session, which Scanlan says “happened literally in a day. Booker called, I said, ‘Yeah, I’d be there.’ All these people are there. Earl King’s there, Ken Laxton, who was (engineer) on (the Meters’) “Rejuvenation,” John Mayall’s in the studio, Fats’ drummer, Cyril (Neville), Allen’s running the show. We go through two tunes and get ‘em down. It goes alright. And then Booker leaves.

“Everyone’s just hanging around, and Booker comes back, and he’s just out of it. He sits down and goes into a totally wild version of ‘Goodnight, Irene.’ He’s going off, and it’s like a totally different person recording.”

At the end of the session, Scanlan says, “Apparently Booker, out of paranoia, insisted on taking the master tracks with him and proceeded to leave them in the cab on the way home.”

Now there’s a challenge for the archivists out there.

Photo courtesy of Reggie Scanlan.

'Ripple in Stillwater' voted City Pages' 'Best Local Blog-2012'

By Karl Bremer

Ripple in Stillwater is happy to announce our latest award—City Pages’ “Best Local Blog – 2012.” 

Welcome new readers! As you peruse the blog, you might gather that my recent health issues have slowed down the entries somewhat. But there’s plenty more to dig into in the archives—from fraudsters to Felix, the Blue Light to the Boondoggle Bridge.

“If you're looking for the real dirt on Stillwater politics,” City Pages writes, “we recommend skipping the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press and going straight to Ripple in Stillwater.”

We appreciate the recognition by our peers on the Interwebs, and hope you'll agree that we're worthy of it. Stick around—there’s plenty more to come.

Never Let Your Fire Go Out: A Celebration of Survival

By Karl Bremer

The healing power of music and friends was out in full force at Wilebski’s Blues Saloon in St. Paul March 25. Between 400 and 500 people came through the doors over the course of a day jammed with some of Minnesota’s finest musicians and songwriters. They were there to help keep me alive.

I never set out writing this blog as a Caring Bridge kind of thing, but things don’t always work out as planned. So rather than the usual steady diet of slings and arrows at local political miscreants, investigations into fraudsters trying to buy votes, pardons or legitimacy, or occasional forays through musical doors, today you get another Update from the Cancer Desk.

First, the medical lowdown. A CT scan several weeks ago showed the tumors on my liver had shrunk since chemotherapy had begun (the tumors have metastasized from the pancreas to the liver, thus the “Stage 4” diagnosis), which was a good sign. Another scan next week will determine the future course of treatment after the eighth of 12 planned chemo sessions. That could include surgery and/or radiation. Stay tuned.

Now for the fun stuff. Yes, there is an up side to getting cancer. In this case, it came through the love and dedication of the Krewe of DADs, a whole gang of great musicians and hundreds of friends. I’m a founding member of the Krewe of DADs, which modeled itself after New Orleans’ notorious Krewe of MOMs, a rogue Krewe among the Crescent City’s elite other Mardi Gras Krewes that ultimately coalesced around the New Orleans-based Radiators. The Krewe of DADs adopted Halloween as their annual celebration of music featuring the Radiators and we’ve hosted our own Halloween masquerade balls on this end of the Mississippi River for a quarter century. All but last year’s featured the Radiators, but after they disbanded in June 2011, the New Orleans Suspects, a new group formed by Radiators bassist Reggie Scanlan, ably filled the bill.

L to R: Curt Obeda, Tony Glover, Camile Baudoin &
Paul "Newport Slim" Toracinta.

Besides helping with the Krewe’s regular musical events that brought in some amazing talent to the Twin Cities and surrounding farms and living rooms over the years, I initiated Krewe of DADs fundraisers for post-Katrina musicians in Louisiana and for another Krewe member and cancer survivor, Minneapolis artist Johnny Hanson. In a show of the old saw “what goes around, comes around,” the Krewe of DADs put together a musical extravaganza and silent auction fun(d)raiser for me at Wilebski’s Blues Saloon March 25 that featured some of the same gracious talent that always seems to be there when you need them:

Camile Baudoin, Tony Glover, Gene LaFond & the Wild Unknown, Paul Metsa & Cats Under the Stars, Curtis Obeda and the Butanes, Tim O’Keefe, Peter Ostroushko, John Pasternacki, Paul Toracinta, Harold Tremblay, Willie Walker, Willie West.

In an ironic twist of fate, Reggie Scanlan had to cancel his trip up from New Orleans to play. Instead, he had exploratory surgery for pancreatic cancer that week, for which he was diagnosed two weeks before. Fortunately, it appears treatable and his recovery period mercifully short.

Friends came from near and far, some I hadn’t seen in 30 years or more, to help take the sting out of losing a year or more of fulltime work and good health. It did that and more. It was kind of like getting a snapshot of your future through the lens of your past. Or an episode of  “This Is Your Life.” Seven hours of pure positive energy permeated the room on Rice Street, and I didn’t miss a minute of it.

In situations like this, you’ve got to treat the mind as well as the body. Thanks to all who organized, attended, performed, donated, publicized or otherwise participated in this celebration of survival. I promise a good return on your investment.

Videos by David Fried
Photo by Paul Sand

Sold Down the (St. Croix) River

Michele Bachmann and Amy Klobuchar celebrate the

gutting of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

By Karl Bremer

If the campaign waged on the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act by proponents of a $700 million freeway bridge across the St. Croix River proved anything, it’s that lies and misinformation work.

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Sean Duffy has only been in Congress for a year-and-a-half, but he’s already mastered the art of lying to pass legislation. Of course, he’s had the tutelage of the Queen of Lies, Michele Bachmann, to assist him in this time-honored tradition.

Duffy stood on the floor of the House March 2 and spewed the same false information that Bachmann had written in a “Dear Colleague” letter a couple of weeks earlier: that the Boondoggle Bridge Congress voted to exempt from the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act later that day is merely a $292 million bridge and not a $700 million bridge:

“I think we gotta be clear on what that $700 million is,” Duffy misled the House during the floor debate on this “noncontroversial” measure. “It’s really only $292 million when you look at the actual cost of construction of the bridge—$292 million. If you want to look at all the extra costs that will get you upwards of $600 million, that cost comes from all the mitigation— the environmental mitigation that’s been requested over the decades of negotiation of trying to get this bridge done. It’s not the bridge part—it’s the bipartisan effort trying to get people to agree to make this project go forward that increases the costs dramatically to $600-plus million dollars.”

Bullshit. Even Mike Wilhelmi, executive director of the pro-Boondoggle Coalition for a St. Croix River Crossing, admitted as much at a meeting in Stillwater the day after Congress voted to move it along to the president’s desk. Of course, it didn’t bother Wilhelmi or his taxpayer-financed lobbyist group enough to bother to correct the latest falsehood to be spread by their team through the media and halls of Congress.

For the record, here is the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s breakdown of the costs of the Boondoggle Bridge:

(1) TH 36 – Oakgreen/Greeley Intersection   $ 13.2 million

(2) Minnesota Approach                                 $ 61.0 million

(3) River Bridge                                             $293.2 million

(4) Wisconsin Approach                                 $  38.0 million

CONSTRUCTION COST SUBTOTAL     $405.4 million

Right of Way                                                   $  17.7 million

Mitigation Estimate                                         $  27.6 million

Contingency/Risk                                            $  35.8 million

Bonds and Insurance                                        $  25.5 million
Engineering and management                          $  90.0 million

Previously incurred expenses                           $  24.4 million

PROJECT TOTAL                                      $626.4 MILLION

(POTENTIAL COST RANGE: $571 MILLION - $676 MILLION)

Sure, you can build this bridge for $292 million, as Bachmann and Duffy claimed. You just couldn’t drive on it.

BACHMANN’S BIPARTISAN BRIDGE BUDDIES

As Bachmann and Sen. Amy Klobuchar were so fond of reminding us, this was a bipartisan effort. Minnesota Democrats Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken and Mark Dayton stood by silently and let Bachmann’s lies be disseminated unchallenged as well, adding further disgrace to a party that once could be counted on to defend environmental protections like the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, not dismantle them.

Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki, Washington County
Commissioner Gary Kriesel, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and

Rep. Michele Bachmann.

In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Governor Dayton added his own contributions to this steaming pile of excrement masquerading as “facts” with his assertion that the new bridge will be located “only about 50 yards south of the existing Lift Bridge” (it’s a mile south, Governor); near a coal-fired power plant that “spews large plumes of smoke well above the river (a plant whose harshest critics admit is state-of-the-art in emissions reductions); and “a glass manufacturing plant” (Andersen Windows has manufactured wood window and door frames, not glass, at its Bayport plant for the past century, Governor).

Equally disingenuous was Dayton’s, Klobuchar’s and Franken’s twisted contention that because the proposed bridge corridor is adjacent to a coal-fired power plant, it didn’t deserve the protections of the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act. The fact is, that plant—the Allen S. King plant built in 1968 by Northern States Power—is the very reason the Lower St. Croix River was brought under the Act four years later by the original bill’s co-author, Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale. It was to prevent another scar on this national treasure, not justify one more.

There was another force at work that helped pushed this abomination through: the hidden hand of labor. It wasn’t until the votes were taken that new best friends Bachmann and Klobuchar hailed the contributions of the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations in strong-arming (Democratic) votes to the table for their Boondoggle Bridge.

That’s certain to rekindle the tired old debate of jobs vs. environment in Minnesota, fueled by exaggerated claims of 6,000 or more construction jobs to build the Boondoggle Bridge, and a waning public interest in maintaining environmental protection laws in the face of such false choices

If President Obama signs this bill, it won’t be because there was an honest and fair debate on the issues. It will be because Boondoggle Bridge proponents played fast and loose with the facts and deliberately misrepresented this project as a harmless, one-time exception to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act that costs a fraction of its true price tag.

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was passed in 1968, co-authored by Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. The Upper St. Croix River was among the first 156 stretches of river to receive protection under the Act; the Lower St. Croix was added to the system in 1972.

Ironically, with the granting of the Bachmann-Klobuchar-Franken-Dayton exemption for a high-speed freeway bridge across the St. Croix, this critical act that today protects 12,598 miles of 203 rivers in 38 states and territories will see the beginning of its unraveling at the hands of politicians from the very states that gave us these protections in the first place.


Photos by Karl Bremer

Ripple in Stillwater Updates

By Karl Bremer
A recent FBI bulletin regarding the "sovereign citizen" movement caught our eye here at Ripple in Stillwater. We reported extensively on local hate-radio celebrity and former "sovereign citizen" Bradley Dean Smith in 2010-11, and thought the FBI's renewed interest in this movement was worth an update.

Likewise, recent reports that the fraudster known as "Bobby Thompson" may now be in New Mexico should be of interest to those who followed my award-winning investigation into the Minnesota operations of "Bobby Thompson" and his fraudulent Navy Veterans charity.

THE MAN KNOWN AS “BRADLEE DEAN”

The FBI and several states are taking the “sovereign citizen” movement a little more seriously these days. You might remember our own local “sovereign citizen”—Bradley Dean Smith, aka “Bradlee Dean,” of the Annandale-based hate “ministry” You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International. Dean, who was the subject of a Ripple in Stillwater investigation in 2010-11, renounced his "allegiance to the world" to become a “sovereign citizen” in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Smith’s “citizenship” in the Kingdom of Heaven was issued in November 2003 and expired in November 2010, according to his online Embassy of Heaven ID:

“On file is a signed statement by Bradley Smith renouncing allegiance to the world and declaring citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“We are fellow citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Government of God, which was handed to the Apostles by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper (Luke 22:29), We fulfill the Great Commission by traveling from place to place using old and modern conveyances. Our government is not of this world, and we expect to be held accountable to the laws from which we come. Our conduct is not an offense if it not an offense in the Kingdom of Heaven."

 

While Smith’s escapades with the Embassy of Heaven might sound loopy, the FBI has taking a more jaundiced look at the sovereign citizen movement recently.

  

“The FBI considers sovereign-citizen extremists as comprising a domestic terrorist movement, which, scattered across the United States, has existed for decades, with well-known members, such as Terry Nichols, who helped plan the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing,” says a September 2011 bulletin from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analysis Section.

“They could be dismissed as a nuisance, a loose network of individuals living in the United States who call themselves “sovereign citizens” and believe that federal, state, and local governments operate illegally. Some of their actions, although quirky, are not crimes. The offenses they do commit seem minor: They do not pay their taxes and regularly create false license plates, driver’s licenses, and even currency.

“However, a closer look at sovereign citizens’ more severe crimes, from financial scams to impersonating or threatening law enforcement officials, gives reason for concern,” the report continues.

The FBI bulletin cites several instances where sovereign citizens resorted to violence and notes:

“Although the sovereign-citizen movement does not always rise to violence, its members’ illegal activities and past violent—including fatal—incidents against law enforcement make it a group that should be approached with knowledge and caution. It is important that law enforcement be aware of sovereign citizens’ tactics so agencies can warn the public of potential scams, spot illegal activity and understand its potential severity, and be prepared for and protect against violent behavior or backlash through intimidation and harassment.”

While Smith’s ugly, homophobic, on-air diatribes against gays often push the envelope, there is no record of any violent or illegal activity on behalf of or connected to You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International.

It’s not known whether Smith still has any affiliation with the Embassy of Heaven or any other sovereign citizen organization. He took legal action in 2008 to sever his ties with Glen Stoll of Edmonds, WA, who introduced Smith to the Embassy of Heaven and allegedly induced him to establish ministerial “trusts” under the auspices of his sovereign citizen organization, the Family Defense League. These trusts were described in Smith’s court filings as “false and fraudulent schemes” and “shams, devoid of economic substance.”

In March 2009, District Court Judge Stephen Halsey granted Smith’s church and organization, Old Paths Church, Inc. and YCR, Inc., their motion for a summary judgment against Stoll that terminated Stoll’s trusts and removed Stoll as trustee.

Nonetheless, the FBI’s September 2011 bulletin predicts:

“The sovereign-citizen threat likely will grow as the nationwide movement is fueled by the Internet, the economic downturn, and seminars held across the country that spread their ideology and show people how they can tap into funds and eliminate debt through fraudulent methods. As sovereign citizens’ numbers grow, so do the chances of contact with law enforcement and, thus, the risks that incidents will end in violence. Law enforcement and judicial officials must understand the sovereign-citizen movement, be able to identify indicators, and know how to protect themselves from the group’s threatening tactics.”

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International had a

recruiting and merchandise table at Michele Bachmann's

April 2010 fundraiser with half-term Gov. Sarah Palin.

THE MAN KNOWN AS 'BOBBY THOMPSON'

"Bobby Thompson" and President George W. Bush

The noose may be tightening around the man known as “Bobby Thompson,” who led a fraudulent nationwide veterans’ charity that allegedly bilked thousands of donors out of tens of millions of dollars.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, whose original investigation revealed the elaborate charity scheme in 2010, U.S. Marshals are concentrating their search for “Thompson” in Albuquerque, NM. The owners of several of the con man’s stolen identities, including “Bobby Thompson,” reportedly had ties to Albuquerque or New Mexico.

Ripple in Stillwater’s award-winning investigation into “Thompson” found that the Minnesota operations of his phony U.S. Navy Veterans Association took in more than $1.5 million over a six-year period, with little more than a UPS drop box for a presence in  the state. Very little of the $1.5 million was ever accounted for.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has conducted little, if any, investigation into “Thompson” or his scam, despite the fact that he has been the subject of numerous other state and national investigations. The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board fined “Thompson” $21,000 for illegal campaign contributions as a result of an investigation of a complaint filed by Ripple in Stillwater.

In what clearly looks like a money-laundering and/or illegal campaign contribution scheme, the U.S. Navy Veterans Association collected millions from unsuspecting donors while “Thompson” gave thousands of dollars to Minnesota Republican politicians, including Michele Bachmann, the state GOP and other GOP political entities. His most recent donation in Minnesota was $5,000 to “Patriot PAC,” a political action committee formed by GOP operative Joey Gerdin.

Gerdin says she met the alleged con man in St. Paul at a fundraiser she hosted during the 2008 Republican National Convention.

“He seemed like a nice guy, completely congenial, supportive of veterans. Seemed like your typical patriot to me,” Gerdin told Ripple in Stillwater. She has since refused to talk about “Thompson,” or his $5,000 illegal contribution to her PAC.

For reasons yet unknown, “Thompson,” a Florida resident with no apparent Minnesota connections, showered tens of thousands of dollars on Minnesota Republican politicians and the Republican Party of Minnesota. Besides the $10,000 he gave to Bachmann and the $5,000 he gave to Patriot PAC, he made the following donations to other Minnesota Republicans and GOP entities:

• $21,500 to Republican Norm Coleman’s Senate re-election campaign from 2006-2008
• $7,000 to the Minnesota House Republican Campaign Committee in 2008-2009
• $10,400 to the Republican Party of Minnesota from 2008-2010
• $500 to former Rep. Marty Seifert’s Seifert for Governor Campaign in 2009
• $500 to Republican David J. Carlson’s Citizens for David Carlson committee in House District 67B in 2008.

“Thompson” is currently wanted by several states and federal agencies for money laundering, fraud and identity theft.

Milk carton graphic: Ken Avidor