Source:
The New York TimesTop executives at the Fiesta Bowl, the host of one of the nation’s pre-eminent college football games, funneled campaign contributions to local politicians, flew other Arizona elected officials around the country at the bowl’s expense, racked up a $1,000 bill at a strip club, and even spent $30,000 on a birthday party for the chief executive, according to an investigative report commissioned by the bowl’s board of directors.
The most serious revelations involve nearly a dozen employees who told investigators that the chief executive and others working for the bowl encouraged them to make political contributions, then reimbursed them with phony bonus payments. Some said they then were pressured to lie about the practice.
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Some aspects of the campaign contribution scheme were reported by The Arizona Republic in 2009, prompting an initial inquiry by the board of directors as well as an investigation by Arizona’s state attorney general. The attorney general’s investigation remains open.
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One of the beneficiaries of the trips was Russell Pearce, the State Senate president, a Republican who has gained a national profile over the past year for writing Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Pearce and his wife traveled to Chicago in 2005 to attend a Northwestern-Michigan game and stayed at the Ritz-Carlton. He and his wife also traveled to Boston on a similar trip with his son in 2008, according to the report.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/sports/ncaafootball/30fiesta.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
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