Ed Mezvinsky represented Iowa's first district for four years, before Jim Leach. In '76 when he was running a campaign against Leach, he was scheduled to speak at MIU.
He never showed up. Well, obviously, his karma for that snub has caught up to him. Had he not been a no-show, he would still be rich and would still be in Congress. ---------------- Far from his heyday, Mezvinsky admits guilt By: Maryclaire Dale - Associated Press Issue date: 9/30/02 Section: Nation Article Tools: Page 1 of 1 PHILADELPHIA In their heyday, Ed Mezvinsky and his wife, Marjorie, were a power couple in Democratic Party circles and on suburban Philadelphia's swanky Main Line. The couple had both served in Congress, and Marjorie Margolies- Mezvinsky, a magnetic former NBC-TV reporter, was gearing up for a 2000 Senate bid. Political advisers, fri-ends, and one or another of their 11 children, some adopted from overseas, came and went in their $900,000, 8,200-square-foot mansion in Narberth. "It was always a vibrant household, with community figures, political figures, cultural figures. Marjorie has many acquaintances, and Ed did, too," said Jerome Shestack, a close friend who is the former president of the American Bar Association. But the children are now grown, and the couple's careers, mansion, money, and status are all but gone, too. On Sept. 27, Edward Mezvinsky, 65, admitted that he bilked investors who handed over more than $10 million, including friends, law clients, and even his late mother-in-law. "I'm trying to understand what happened," Mezvinsky said Sept. 28 from his rented house in Merion, as he watched his native Iowa edge Penn State in overtime. "Something broke." Margolies-Mezvinsky, 60, who has kept a low profile since the couple's separate bankruptcy filings in 2000 and her husband's March 2001 indictment, was noticeably absent Sept. 27, when he pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 fraud-related counts. "He boasted to many [victims], for example, of a close personal friendship with President and Mrs. Clinton and of his son's friendship with Chelsea Clinton at Stanford University," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer wrote in the 133-page plea agreement, entered days before Mezvinsky's scheduled Oct. 7 trial. Margolies-Mezvinsky, who was not charged, has said she left the family finances to her husband. She was not at home Sept. 28, and she could not be reached for comment, her husband said. "This has not broken Marjorie, nor do I believe it's broken Ed," said her lawyer, Zachary Grayson. "They're lovely people who have lived their lives as much for others as for themselves." Mezvinsky, the heir to a small supermarket-chain fortune, was a star athlete during high school in Ames who went on to earn master's and law degrees in California. By age 36, he was representing Iowa's 1st District (which included Iowa City) in Washington, where he met Margolies, then a reporter. Each had a moment in the spotlight in Congress. His came when he served on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Nixon. Margolies-Mezvinsky cast the deciding vote for Bill Clinton's 1993 tax hike. The move endeared her to the Clintons, who would invite the couple to their Renaissance Weekends in Hilton Head, N.C., but cost Margolies-Mezvinsky her seat in Republican-held Montgomery County. Ever-optimistic, she remained in the public eye, heading the U.S. delegation to the Beijing Women's Conference and unsuccessfully campaigning for lieutenant governor. Mezvinsky, after serving in Congress from 1973 to 1977, became an ambassador to a United Nations commission and state Democratic Party chairman. He also spent millions on unsuccessful races for the U.S. Senate in 1980 and attorney general in 1988. In the 1990s, Mezvinsky left the politics to his wife and turned to international business deals. But he rarely made a dime, instead losing millions to African con artists pitching pyramid-type schemes. "Without any meaningful income, he was perpetually in debt throughout the 1990s," the plea agreement states. While he first sought ever-larger bank loans, that pipeline soon shut down, and by 1995, he was turning to individual investors. Mezvinsky, moving money at a frenetic pace, deposited $13.28 million in his numerous accounts from 1995 to early 2000, most of it from investors and clients, according to investigators, who reviewed more than 8,000 transactions. During the same period, he spent $13.3 million, with 44 percent of the money going to creditors, 20 percent to Africans, and 17 percent for cash withdrawals, they said. While Mezvinsky blamed his woes in part on the costly campaigns and tuition bills the University of Pennsylvania, where Margolies- Mezvinsky now teaches, once sued over a child's tuition prosecutors say those were small potatoes. Mezvinsky spent approximately $77,000 on tuition from 1995 to 1999, but withdrew at least $2.25 million in cash during the same period, they say. Mezvinsky's plea comes after U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell rejected defense claims that blamed his actions on a bipolar disorder and the anti-malaria drug Lariam, which he took on trips to Africa. Prosecutors plan to ask for nine to 11 years in prison at the Jan. 9 sentencing. They will also seek restitution, but they acknowledge that there's no money to be found. "I'm trying to move on with my life. I'm trying to do what's right, not only respecting the system, but what's right for my family," Mezvinsky said. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Does he tell you he loves you when he hits you? Abuse. Narrated by Halle Berry. http://us.click.yahoo.com/hemMeA/rbOLAA/d1hLAA/0NYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
