Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Incoming

Two very interesting comments came in this morning....one from Anon regarding local business connections to Memphian, Dennis Churchwell, and another from someone who apparently has intimate knowledge of Aaron Bennett's business ethos.

Churchwell first:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Don Muppet":

Churchwell is connected to two local businessmen named George Chin and Egbert Ming. According to state campaign finance records, these two appear to have provided the additional $20,000 to Nagin's campaign in May, 2006 in addition to the $80,000 that Churchwell's Tennessee folks kicked in, for a total of $100,000. Their donations were made within a day of Churchwell's.

Chin and Ming own the buildings at 3500 and 3600 St Charles. There's a lot of connections that flow outward from there, along with their many, many businesses (check them out on the Louisiana Secretary of State site). One of the businesses located there is JNE Enterprises (it's in 3500), which has received millions in FEMA-funded City of New Orleans largesse as the city's Tactical Trash Force contractor.

One of the less obvious connections to Churchwell (but a key one) is that Chin is an owner of Orleans Dodge in NO East. This can be found by googling and getting to here:

http://www.nola.com/katrina/pages/102805/1028B02.pdf

Orleans Dodge is the dealer that was hooked up with Churchwell's company (Mid-South Auction & Real Estate Co.) that was domiciled in 3500 St Charles. In fact, it was domiciled in the same office as JNE Enterprises - Suite 204.

The firmest connection is through another company, Global Environmental Recycling, which was domiciled at 3600 St Charles (i.e. Chin & Ming). It lists Orleans Dodge (i.e. Chin) and Mid-South Auction (i.e. Churchwell) as members.

This isn't directly related, but at one time, Chin and Ming did business with Alvarez Ferrouilet. Ferrouilet was convicted in a scheme to illegally launder campaign contributions to Henry Espy, brother of Clinton Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. Ferrouilet and his co-conspirators were pardoned by Clinton in 2001.

Finally,keep an eye on this:
http://www.squanderedheritage.com/2009/06/13/how-to-destroy-a-house/

The home (and the one next door) is owned by the Chin family (specifically George Chin's brother Walter), and both have a demolition applications pending. The contractor on the permits is Back Home Construction, owned by George Chin and Egbert Ming. The demolitions have been denied twice before.

The properties are apparently the bequest of their father, Gin Sing Chin, who died last year (Gin S Chin is listed as the owner in the assessor's database):

http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/orleans/obits/2008/2008-03.txt

It is possible George Chin is having cash flow problems. Orleans Dodge is one of the Chrysler dealers that lost its franchise agreement this month. The demolition permit applications appeared around the same time as that announcement.

And here is the Benetech comment:

Mike Quartana has left a new comment on your post "Sewell gets the boot":

Benetech
's entire operation is a sham. They were also given a no bid contract for cm/pm work for the new Plaquemine's prisons. After flat out billing...errr, stealing over 1.2 million from FEMA, it went back out for release and is now some sort of joint venture between Benetech and CDM. I have hard data and timesheets to back it up, Mr Bennet exemplifies everything that is corrupt and wrong with NO.

No comments: