Norm and Laurie: A second Coleman-Kazeminy connection implicates Mrs. C.

Norm and Laurie: A second Coleman-Kazeminy connection implicates Mrs. C.

The figure of Nasser Kazeminy — longtime Norm Coleman friend and patron — is once again casting a shadow over the U.S. Senate campaign. Kazeminy, the man who may or may not have purchased suits for Coleman at Neiman-Marcus once upon a time, was reportedly accused in a lawsuit filed (and withdrawn) this week of funneling money to Coleman’s wife, Laurie Coleman, through a third party.

(UPDATE: The Nation has obtained a copy of the suit. Someone sent one to MnIndy as well; it’s posted here.)

We know this because there is videotape (published this morning at MnIndy) of Star Tribune reporter Paul McEnroe asking Coleman — or rather, the closed window of Coleman’s SUV — about it.

But whereas McEnroe and Tony Kennedy’s previous inquiries into the Coleman/Kazeminy relationship (the Neiman-Marcus affair) never yielded a story in the paper, this one has to. A quick recapitulation of the main known facts in the matter explains why.

1) The lawsuit was filed Tuesday Monday in a Texas court. Kazeminy was the defendant; the plaintiff is not publicly known at present.

2) One of the claims in the lawsuit, judging from McEnroe’s questions on the video, is the allegation that Laurie Coleman received $75,000 indirectly from Kazeminy, disbursed by Deep Marine Technologies, a company of which Kazeminy owns a substantial share, and paid to Hays Companies, an insurance/risk management outfit where Laurie Coleman was on the payroll.

3) The lawsuit was withdrawn on Wednesday. In his comments to the Pioneer Press, Coleman said the claim was “’simply false.’… The purpose of this stuff is to, at the 11th hour, throw something out there and see if it sticks. There were some things that we believe were thrown in there for the purpose of influencing the campaign. It was withdrawn because the attorneys recognized that there were some things in there that weren’t factual.” Coleman claims, in other words, that the suit was withdrawn because it lacked merit — because the allegations contained in it were false.

4) When asked directly about the disposition of the lawsuit — specifically, whether Kazeminy had struck a settlement with the plaintiff — Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said he didn’t know: “I don’t know about the details of a settlement or not.”

So either the plaintiff was leaned on to withdraw a legal action without merit, or the defendant made a settlement with that party within 24 hours or so of the litigation’s filing. Which was it? The implications regarding the merits of the underlying claim would be judged very differently by most legal observers depending on the answer.

5) The Star Tribune’s McEnroe and Kennedy — unlike any other reporters in town, to our knowledge — have a copy of the lawsuit, which MnIndy and no doubt others are pursuing through the county court systems of Texas. McEnroe and Kennedy are thus in a position to contact the principals’ attorneys of record to get an answer about the disposition of the suit, and to elaborate on the nature of the claims in it, with whatever caveats and disclaimers their reporting of the story may dictate.

But under no circumstances should the public be left in the dark concerning the backstory that frames this unusual turn of events. If the Strib stays mum this time, it will only get tougher for them to deny the not-exactly-subtle pro-GOP bias on the part of the paper’s editors.