It’s sleazy, it’s a blatant conflict-of-interest, and it includes a couple of pals of, wait for it, the ethically-challenged Joe Biden. Maybe that’s why the News-Journal wouldn’t cover it.
Failure to cover this story is journalistic malpractice, which makes it all the more ironic that an alleged ‘reporter’ criticized this blog for covering it.
Anyway, here are key excerpts from the Philadelphia Daily News story written by Joseph Di Stefano:
A plan to build a small-company-focused, blockchain-enabled securities market in Wilmington’s flagging financial district has drawn interest from investors in China, Abu Dhabi, and Canada, but it hasn’t produced the hoped-for influx of securities traders, more than three years after the local government agreed to lend organizers $3 million…
DBOT’s biggest investment to date is from China, where media mogul Bruno Wu last winter swapped shares of his Seven Stars Cloud Group and its China Broadband Ltd. affiliate for a DBOT stake initially valued at $8 million…
Seven Stars’ financial reports since then have detailed the DBOT investors who traded DBOT shares for the buyer’s. There’s a strong local flavor: they include John Hynansky, millionaire owner of the Winner auto-dealership group, who once accompanied his friend Vice President Joe Biden to the Ukraine and got $20 million in U.S. government financing for auto dealerships there; Dennis Toner, a former Biden aide; and Delaware State Rep. Mike Ramone, a Republican from suburban Pike Creek. Ramone held the most shares in that transaction, worth around $3 million at Seven Stars’ trading price when the deal was announced.
Ramone recorded his investment in DBOT on his annual state financial disclosure form for 2017. In June of that year, he voted for a bill that would recognize blockchain-based corporate records, giving DBOT backers something to point to when promoting their Delaware location as blockchain-friendly. It passed by a wide bipartisan margin.
Ramone, a landlord, fitness-center, and swim-school operator when he’s not making law in Dover, didn’t recuse himself from that vote. In his brief response to my calls and emails, Ramone did not address questions about why he joined those Democrats investing in DBOT when Wall Street declined to invest, or explain his non-recusal. He did write, when I asked about DBOT falling short of projections, that “DEBOT (sic) has not closed and left Delaware.” Toner referred questions to Wallace. Hynansky didn’t respond to a message left at his Newark, Del., dealership office.
That is a legitimate news story. The bill in question was specifically sponsored to improve the fortunes of DBOT. The person who held the most shares in DBOT was a state representative who did not recuse himself from his self-interested vote. The person who perhaps most stood to benefit if DBOT took off.
Mike Ramone no longer belongs in the General Assembly. Whether it’s Stephanie Barry and the voters or the House Of Representatives as a whole, Mike Ramone must no longer be permitted to use his office to directly enhance his financial coffers.
Are you reading this, Scott Goff? Gonna write about it?