Maybe Now's The Time To Bow Out 'For The Good Of The People'

Ex-Senator and Current Senate-Litigator Norm can't be happy about this item in the hometown paper

Exec says Coleman donor ordered $100K payments

Sworn statement backs allegation that Kazeminy directed fees to an insurance firm to benefit the Colemans.

The former finance chief of a Texas company controlled by Nasser Kazeminy, a close friend of former Sen. Norm Coleman, said in a deposition last week that Kazeminy ordered $100,000 in fees be paid to a Minneapolis insurance agency where Coleman's wife was employed.

B.J. Thomas, who was chief financial officer of Deep Marine Technology Inc., said that $75,000 of that sum was paid to Hays Companies even though he saw no evidence of Deep Marine receiving any consulting services from Hays.

Thomas' deposition, taken under oath on March 19 and obtained by the Star Tribune, is the first corroboration from an official at Deep Marine of allegations made by company founder Paul McKim in a lawsuit filed last year against the company.

In the two weeks before the November U.S. Senate election, two lawsuits were filed against Deep Marine -- one by McKim and one by a group of minority shareholders. In them, Kazeminy was accused of funneling payments to Hays to benefit the Colemans, as well as other alleged financial wrongdoing.