A familiar plea from would-be host of canceled Franken fundraiser

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“Its [sic] unfortunate that my personal support of the Senator has been used in a business dispute.”

Give or take an apostrophe, that sentence could easily have come from Nasser Kazeminy, the friend and financial backer of former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman who was taken to court in a dispute (since dismissed) over a Texas business that included charges he used it to funnel money to Coleman. But no, those words come in a statement from Mark Erjavec, a convicted swindler who came within hours of hosting a fundraiser for Sen. Al Franken at his Summit Avenue home in St. Paul, the Star Tribune reports.

Or rather, the statement comes from Erjavec’s publicist, responding to the cancellation of the event after Franken’s campaign staff learned that Erjavec had served 13 months behind bars in St. Louis County for bilking Northern Minnesotans in what his uncle father told the Strib was a Ponzi scheme.

A Minnesota Independent online search of Minnesota court records using Erjavec’s name turns up more than 30 civil cases dating back to 1996, including an open case filed this year in Hennepin County: “Lexis-Nexis vs Mark Erjavec dba Demeure Investments.”

Erjavec acts as his own publicist at his website, even including a “Litigation” home page with instructions on how to serve him with legal papers. It may have been altered since the Strib saw this quote there: “My companies from time to time experience or initiate an array of litigation. Sometimes we sue, and sometimes we are sued.”

Coleman’s campaign and Senate staff had little to say about the origins or ending of Franken’s involvement with Erjavec, whose $1.8 million home where Thursday’s fundraiser was set is only one house away from the famed mansion on railroad baron James J. Hill.