Breaking: Bill Lee Sued by FDIC For $1 Million
I wondered why Bill Lee seemed skittish when the DE GOP decided to use a ham handed “he was sued” smear against Markell.
Well I don’ t wonder anymore. Read this Celia Cohen story on Lee and your hair, like mine, will stand on end.
Here is a taste:
Even worse, Farmers Bank was imploding. The Delaware government’s official bank since 1807, it held all the state’s deposits and the life savings and pensions of thousands of Delawareans, and it was riddled with mismanagement, cronyism and sweetheart lending arrangements.
In the economic downturn, Farmers Bank was collapsing under a landslide of $40 million in bad loans, threatening the state with financial disaster and its customers with personal ruin.
Lee and Betts had one of those bad loans.
Real eatste speculation, bank failures, bail outs it is like a soap opera. Bill Lee has to be wondering why this has not gotten out yet.
Lee was trying to flip property in Sussex to developers and got his hand caught in the cookie jar.
Why the hell didn’t Protack use this stuff?
I know this is your counter to that horrible ad, but did you read the whole thing? It’s actually sympathetic to Lee, not accusatory as your trying to make it. Effective paraphrasing on your part, tho. The first comment proves that.
Quite honestly, it was bit of an uncomfortable read, given the point you were trying to make.
Oopsie!
This did get out, in 2004. Lee got caught in a bad land deal, and paid his way out of it.
Markell lied to his stockholders, inflated the value of his company, sold nearly $2 million of stock at a high, and let the company crash. When sued, he let the insurance company pay it off… and then he lied to us all about it.
Quite honestly, it was bit of an uncomfortable read, given the point you were trying to make.
I disagree. It is a spellbinding read due to the fact that the cluster-fucky DE GOP can’t get out of its own way when it comes to trying to smear the opposition.
Yeah. The date is 2004. I thought it was odd that Celia got all Jason-like on us and unretired to write this…
RickJ, welcome back. You seem to assign cause and effect to correlation. Ever take a high school science class?
Ever been sued while insured? You generally have no wiggle room on defending yourself if the insurance company wants to cut a deal. You and your candidate are reaching.
Lee got caught in a bad land deal
Sorta like getting caught in a reset ARM you can’t afford, I guess.
Reaching is the diplomatic way to talk about what Lee and Rick are doing, I guess. You’d be better served by talking up making DNREC into two cabinet agencies. At least that is a real issue.
RickJ19958
“Markell lied to his stockholders, inflated the value of his company, sold nearly $2 million of stock at a high, and let the company crash”
Is that a proven fact or an opinion? What Markell convicted of perjury?
Jason, are you really worried Lee is going to beat Markell ?
I think if anybody needs your help it’s Denn! Copeland is neck and neck! The newly registered Obama minority voters will be pulling the lever for Copeland.
Jason, are you really worried Lee is going to beat Markell ?
No.
On to Denn.
Jason it appears no one is going out on a limb to call the copeland and Denn race!
How do you call it and by what % ?
Celia Cohen is back ?
No, Celia isn’t back. Jason just has an empty hole in his heart since she left. He’s been trying to fill it in by reading her archives daily.
I thought everyone here despised Celia Cohen for being a fraud and insider.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I despised her for being a fraud and an insider and I’m glad she is not inflicted he fruadulent insideryness on Delaware anymore.
Every once in a while (like in this instance) she practiced some actual journalism – but on balance – good riddance.
“Markell lied to his stockholders, inflated the value of his company, sold nearly $2 million of stock at a high, and let the company crash. When sued, he let the insurance company pay it off… and then he lied to us all about it.”
Unfortunately, the above statememt is a real stretch. There are many serious issues to offer a contrast, the stock one is a dog that won’t hunt.
She was apparently good for this one, I guess. It’s all in the content.
She eventually covered Senator Slappy in her book, too, after sitting on the interview for a few years, but no one was ever allowed to mention that.
The Senator Slappy stuff was printed in the News Journal back when Celia was still there. It backfired on Janet Rzewnicki when it was shown that she was, despite her denials, involved in finding the copy of the deposition with the accusation in it.
Rick J: You’re being quite nice to your guy here. As I read that story, Lee went years without paying back what he owed. Hardly the actions of a business person who can be trusted.
“Markell lied to his stockholders, inflated the value of his company, sold nearly $2 million of stock at a high, and let the company crash. When sued, he let the insurance company pay it off… and then he lied to us all about it.”
Unfortunately, the above statememt is a real stretch. There are many serious issues to offer a contrast, the stock one is a dog that won’t hunt.
The judge in the case disagreed. There were 201 assertions of malicious activity. Markell and his co-defendants asked for them all to be thrown out. The judge dismissed only four. So the judge thought enough of Markell’s duplicitous actions to allow 197 of them to go to trial (despite the fact that Markell said they were dismissed).
Al, my guy got caught with his pants down on a land deal. Rather than declare bankruptcy, or rely on an insurance company to pay everything off (see above), he worked his rear end off and nearly went broke paying off the principals himself. That shows that when things go wrong, Bill Lee knows how to be responsible.
“Rather than declare bankruptcy, or rely on an insurance company to pay everything off (see above), he worked his rear end off and nearly went broke paying off the principals himself. That shows that when things go wrong, Bill Lee knows how to be responsible.”
Wrong. It shows he’s another chicken-stuff Delawarean when it comes to business, making deals on a handshake and getting played for a sucker, while Jack Markell played in the big leagues, where people form corporations, buy insurance — and go to court when things go wrong. I take a different view — Bill Lee didn’t do his due diligence and got burned.
Maybe that’s the way people did things in Sussex County back then. For that matter, maybe they still do. The rest of us don’t live in Bill Lee’s Delaware anymore.
By the way, get back to us when you show Markell had first-hand involvement in anything other than selling his stock. Otherwise, you’re just painting an ugly picture of something that could be portrayed as far less sinister. For evidence, look at the differences between Celia’s quite sympathetic take on this story, and the one I barely sketched out before you cried like a plucked chicken. It’s pretty easy to reduce your guy’s tale to a greedy investor, looking to make a quick killing by flipping a property (sounds like an insider deal, frankly) without the proper collateral. Taking risks with other people’s money — just what I want in a governor.
See what I mean? You really want to start flinging this kind of mud? Because I’m happy to.
Oh, and because of Liz Allen’s whining to my bosses, I must state that these views do not reflect those of the ownership or management of WDEL.
Ever been sued while insured? You generally have no wiggle room on defending yourself if the insurance company wants to cut a deal. You and your candidate are reaching.
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HA! Puhlease…considering the constant smearing of Gordon for pleading out to a minor infraction…this blog’s hypocrisy stinks.
If they’re such smears, why didn’t Tom sue? Oh, right, there’s evidence on tape that would come out if he did that.
Just because you’re a born sucker, don’t take it out on people here.