This scandal has tied in the highest levels of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Obama campaign bundler Marjorie Rawls Roberts — a tax attorney in the Virgin Islands — helped alleged and convicted financial criminals get tax breaks from that same program de Jongh’s now-former chief of staff was trying to dip into.
Roberts, who has pledged to raise between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama’s 2012 campaign, helped recently convicted $7 billion Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford and executives from CFC with their tax break benefits applications.
The revelation that Roberts was helping such financial criminals forced DNC chairwoman and Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to cancel at the last minute a scheduled fundraising trip to the Virgin Islands — where she was scheduled to make an appearance with Roberts earlier this year.
The tax breaks program — essentially where millionaires and billionaires go to avoid paying high taxes — has faced extra scrutiny of late. Alleged blood-diamond financiers have benefited from the Virgin Islands’ “Economic Development Corporation” program, as does convicted sex offender billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Billionaire Donald Sussman, the husband of Maine Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, also gets Virgin Islands Economic Development Corporation tax breaks. And, as The Maine Wire has detailed, Sussman shares a lot of connections with many of the same characters aforementioned.
This latest spark — the governor’s chief of staff’s resignation — might be enough to start moving the case Attorney General Eric Holder allegedly stalled. In late May, TheDC’s DOJ source said the arrest teams that were previously called back were sent back out and told to wait for Holder’s word to make a move.
*Correction: This article was corrected after publication to correctly characterize Berkowsky’s role regarding the PBB Trust.
