ALBUQUERQUE -- Transcripts of secretly recorded meetings about state investments during Gov. Bill Richardson's administration show the governor was calling the shots on decisions that steered millions of dollars to a political supporter's son, an attorney for a whistle-blower alleged Monday.

"These tapes corroborate what we have been saying for three and a half years," said Victor Marshall, an attorney for the former chief investment officer of the retirement board. His client, Frank Foy, has filed two lawsuits alleging widespread corruption in how state investments were handled under Richardson.

The recordings were made in 2006 by Aldus Equity Advisors employees seeking to oust the firm's founding partner after discovering he was using pay-to-play schemes to obtain business. At the time, the company advised the New Mexico State Investment Council and its Education Retirement Board.

In the recordings, Aldus Equity Advisors founding partner Saul Meyer told his staff that the father-son team of Anthony and Marc Correa provided him with a list of firms that Aldus was supposed to recommend for investment.

"To think that Anthony and Marc [Correa] don't have a stranglehold over this is crazy," Meyer said, according to the transcripts. "Because the governor runs this ... and they run the governor."

The transcripts showed that Meyer said: "Sometimes the governor can get cute and go around him [Anthony Correa] to a [State Investment Council] trustee. ... Now none of this leaves the room. ... the governor has no involvement, officially or unofficially. OK?"

According to the recordings, filed Friday in state court in Santa Fe, Meyer said the Correas largely controlled the process for the state's investments in private equity firms. He said the Correas would tell Aldus which funds to invest in, and Aldus, in turn, would make recommendations to the State Investment Council. Richardson chaired the State Investment Council and appointed most of its members.

Marc Correa shared in more than $22 million in finder's fees paid by companies that received state investments.

Several lawsuits are pending over alleged pay-to-play schemes involving the investment council and the retirement board, as well as a regulatory investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The status of a federal grand jury probe was unclear.

Meyer has pleaded guilty to a felony fraud charge for paying kickbacks in exchange for business with the New York state pension fund. Attorneys for the Correas declined to comment.

Richardson's spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email or phone call seeking comment. The former governor has in the past denied any wrongdoing involving state investments during his tenure.

Marshall said he received the tapes recently but declined to say how he got them.

Given the new evidence, he said he may add Richardson as a defendant in one of Foy's lawsuits.

Those lawsuits seek to recover some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that Foy says the state lost based on bad investments made under the alleged kickback scheme.




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