Yesterday, Dino Grisanti’s sentencing occurred before Judge Mills. The Daily Journal reports he got a day in jail and a $7,500 fine on his guilty plea for selling vehicles in his inventory at Grisanti Rebel Motors in Oxford while concealing that from the bank: ”Prosecutors said that Grisanti concealed the sales of 66 automobiles and didn’t tell Regions to the tune of $2,085,768.” Regions was ultimately repaid.
This seemed a remarkable sentence for Grisanti and his lawyer, Tony Farese, to have achieved.
Today, Judge Mills unsealed the government’s motion for a downward departure, which explains this result. The motion attaches a letter from the prosecutors who handled Hal Neilson’s case, which has details about Grisanti’s cooperation, and how the government learned about Neilson’s participation. Recall that Neilson was prosecuted for falsehoods in financial statements relating to an FBI building here last fall, resulting in a hung jury on some counts and innocence on others.
According to Grisanti, Neilson asked to be a co-owner of the building during the site selection process.
On July 9, 2008, Mr. Grisanti was interviewed by two agents with the DOJ-OIG and an attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In that debriefing, Mr. Grisanti provided the entire background regarding his business relationship with Neilson, including Neilson’s involvement in the site selection process for the new FBI Building. According to Mr. Grisanti, Neilson requested during the selection process to be a one-third owner in the building should the contract be obtained by Mr. Grisanti and his business partner, John Covington.
The letter describes Nielson’s calling around to witnesses as soon as he heard of the investigation:
On July 29, 2008, Neilson learned that he was being investigated based on his financial interest in the FBI building. Neilson immediately began contacting potential witnesses. On the afternoon of July 29, 2008, Mr. Grisanti spoke with Neilson on the phone and allowed his conversation to be recorded by DOJ-OIG. Neilson was not aware that Mr. Grisanti was cooperating in the investigation
The letter outlines the prosecutor’s decision not to call Grisanti as a witness in the Neilson case, a decision that puzzled some.
Here’s the motion and letter.
Strange, isn’t it? They extoll the virtues of Mr. Grisanti and his credibility – yet they failed to put him on the stand!
Furthermore, the letter from Baton Rouge that was unsealed contains outright lies. For example – the government claims they didn’t know about the ownership of the building until July 2008. However, there is an email from Jim Greenlee to Main Justice in the fall of 2007 asking for an investigation into the ownership of the building! It was around this time that Greenlee dispatched an AUSA to surrounding counties to pull land records of what Hal owned. It was also around this time that John Hailman abruptly retired in the wake of the Convenience Store Initiative Scandal that Hal turned over to DOJ. Hmmmm. Coincidence?
Dino was just a pawn in a ruthless came to “get” Hal. An interesting document is the FBI 302 of Agent Tom Bolke. It seems that when Agent Bolke contacted Regions Bank about Dino, they were surprised and said they did not want to prosecute – the money had been repaid.
Bolke goes to AUSA Roberts and says “Why are we prosecuting this case – we don’t prosecute where the bank declines to do so.” Roberts said – “continue the investigation.”
What do you make of that???
I’m trying to figure out some chronology here. Apparently, after 9/11, the US Attorney here targeted convenience store owners with Islamic names. Failing anything else, in 2006 there were arrests involving sales of over-the-counter medicine that were precursors to meth. This initiative surfaced in two newspaper stories, one by Jerry Mitchell in September of 2009 and the other by Patsy Brumfield in January of 2010. The theme of the Brumfield story was bad blood between Hal Neilson and Jim Greenlee, and that the indictment of Neilson was the product of that bad blood. There was also reference to the recent (Dec, 2009) publication of the Dawson and Lange book, which referred to mistrust between the US Attorney’s office and Neilson.
So, I’m having real trouble understanding how the retirement of John Hailman in October of 2007, two years before these two newspaper stories, and over a year after the apparent end of the convenience store investigation, is connected to the investigation? Since I’ve not seen any hint of that in any other public document?
I’m love to see the agent’s 302 referred to above, and Greenlee’s email. Those seem more concrete than the sideswipe at Hailman.
NMC, that first comment thru dirt towards a number of people. Someone was trying to stir the pot. I think no one gives a rip and further that the building is a poorly designed and ill-conceived eye sore.