Photo: MnIndy

Minnesota businessman Nasser Kazeminy is asking a Texas court for $400,000 from a man who said Kazeminy funneled money to former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman. A judge in Houston hears Kazeminy’s defamation complaint today.

Kazeminy, a friend and benefactor to Coleman, was targeted by a separate suit filed shortly before Election Day last year. That suit alleged that Kazeminy tried to strong-arm executives at a Texas business he controls into sending $100,000 to the St. Paul insurance firm where Coleman’s wife, Laurie, works.

Former CEO Paul McKim and another former official of Deep Marine Technology, Inc., made the allegation in sworn testimony as part of the lawsuit, which a judge dismissed in August — leaving the option for both sides to file new lawsuits.

Coleman, who was not named in the suit, has accused his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, and Star Tribune newspaper reporters of helping to orchestrate the charges days before the election.

Coleman contends the lawsuit hurt him in the election that he lost to Franken by 312 votes, a result affirmed by the Minnesota Supreme Court in June after a prolonged legal battle that kept Minnesota’s second Senate seat empty for six months.

Coleman’s own legal and other expenses related to the case could be covered by his campaign committee, the Federal Election Commission ruled.

People in Minnesota and Texas have been reported to have been interviewed by FBI agents investigating the money-funneling allegations.

As anticipated, Judge Michael Gomez of the Harris County District Court in Houston put a stop to the case that ex-CEO Paul McKim filed against his former firm, Deep Marine Technology, and Kazeminy, the Minnesota businessman who controls it.

Public attention to the lawsuit centered on the charges concerning Coleman, but he wasn’t named as a defendant. Indeed, McKim devoted only three of the lawsuit’s 30-plus pages to his allegation that Kazeminy had Deep Marine send $75,000 (and ask for $25,000 more to be sent) to the Hays Companies, the St. Paul insurance firm where Coleman’s wife Laurie works.

Both McKim and Kazeminy wanted the suit, filed a week and a half before Election Day 2008, to end. Gomez ruled that McKim no longer had legal standing as a minority stockholder to bring the case — the very order that McKim’s lawyer requested at a hearing on Monday.

But despite the judge’s stated reason for the suit’s demise, Coleman saw vindication in the lawsuit’s end and suggested villainy in its timing. The former senator told the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “I’m not surprised — the election is over and the lawsuit goes away. There was never anything to this.”

Kazeminy lawyer Robert Weinstine, in comments about retaliating against the plaintiff, told the Associated Press: “I don’t think we’re going to be in any position to give Paul McKim a free pass here.”

Does that mean Kazeminy, Coleman or Hays will sue to show that McKim’s charges and former Deep Marine CFO B. J. Thomas’ sworn testimony were lies?

Or with the lawsuit, will their protests simply … go away?

Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

As the Minnesota Independent reported yesterday, a business merger has scuttled a lawsuit that implicated a Norm Coleman benefactor in a money-funneling scheme. Now Coleman tells the Star Tribune he’s glad for the imminent demise of the Texas civil-court complaint that has dogged him (though it doesn’t name him) since last October. The suit, which alleges that Nasser Kazeminy sent Coleman secret cash via Coleman’s wife’s employer, “obviously” hurt him at the polls. The former senator says:

There was never, never, ever anything involved in this that had anything to do with my wife or me in terms of any monies being traded. Nothing. And yet the allegations played out and the election is over and now the suit goes away and I’m glad it has.

The Strib’s Tony Kennedy writes that FBI officials continue to refuse to comment on the bureau’s investigation into Coleman and donor Nasser Kazeminy. Few details have emerged about the investigation, but in May, the Huffington Post and the local dailies reported that agents had interviewed a Minnesotan as part of the probe.

The FBI investigation came up during my interview Tuesday with Casey Wallace, the Texas attorney who filed the suit on behalf of Paul McKim, an ex-CEO fighting with the owners of his former company, Deep Marine Technology.

Wallace generally disavows any intent or interest in the political aspects of the lawsuit, which is in large part devoted to an unrelated dispute about the handling of the business, which Kazeminy controls.

But when I asked Wallace about the future of the charges concerning Kazeminy and Coleman, now that the current lawsuit looks doomed, he mentioned the FBI investigation as one avenue, besides Deep Marine legal action, that could turn up information. Does he know of anyone who has been interviewed?

“There are people who have been interviewed” was all Wallace said he could tell me.

Photo: Chris Steller, Minnesota Independent

The lawsuit alleging that Nasser Kazeminy funneled $75,000 to Norm Coleman because “senators don’t make shit” should be discontinued, according to the attorney who brought the civil case in a Texas court last year.

That’s because Kazeminy, a Minnesota businessman who is a friend and donor to the former senator, has since manipulated the structure of the company at the heart of the dispute — leaving the plaintiff without standing to sue.

“Our goose got cooked,” said Casey Wallace, who represents Paul McKim, the former CEO of Deep Marine Technology and a minority shareholder in the company.

The value of the Deep Marine stock McKim owns was reduced to a penny after a merger that Kazeminy helped engineer, Wallace said, leaving his client with no choice but to ask the judge to discontinue the suit in a court hearing on Monday at which the defendants urged dismissal.

The case will come to an end either way, as long as the judge agrees with one side or the other, in a ruling expected by week’s end.

That would be a victory for Kazeminy, who Wallace said used delays — ordered by the court for what turned out to be a “whitewash” investigation that “ratified” the defense’s position — to complete the merger.

The lawsuit’s end would also leave unresolved the question of whether Kazeminy forced Deep Marine Technology, the Texas company he controls, to make a series of payments to Hays Companies, the St. Paul insurance firm that employs the former senator’s wife, Laurie Coleman.

But Wallace said the Kazeminy-Coleman charges, along with the rest of the suit, could be revived in future legal action, either by McKim or other minority shareholders.

Checks entered into evidence show that Deep Marine sent $75,000 to Hays Companies, and two sworn statements say Kazeminy, out of concern for the Colemans’ financial situation, wanted yet another $25,000 to be disbursed.

Coleman isn’t named as a defendant in the case, and the suit alleges only that Kazeminy directed the money to Hays with the Colemans in mind. Despite immediate and continuing claims that the case amounted to nothing more than political blackmail, “We never tried to connect the dots to the Colemans,” Wallace said.

Indeed, although the cash-funneling charges have been the focus of media attention since the lawsuit was filed, shortly before the election last fall, Wallace said they are “very near the bottom — no, on the bottom” among a litany of financial misdeeds that McKim’s suit alleges.

Norm Coleman concedes. Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

All of the allegations contained in a pair of lawsuits detailing a purported scheme to funnel $100,000 to then-U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman are false, according to the findings of a Special Litigation Committee appointed by the company at the center of the legal dispute.

The lawsuits allege that Nasser Kazeminy and his allies were responsible for gross fiscal mismanagement of Deep Marine Technology, a Houston-based underwater services firm. Among the alleged waste: an attempt by Kazeminy to provide funds to Coleman through a Minneapolis insurance firm where the former senator’s wife was employed.

The lawsuits were filed in the final days before voters went to the polls in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race between Coleman and Al Franken, which was finally settled on Tuesday with Coleman conceding the race to Franken after a lengthy recount and legal appeal which went to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Bruce Gilman, chairman and CEO of Deep Marine Technology and parent firm Deep Marine Holdings, declines to discuss the specific allegation involving Coleman.

“All I can tell you is that all the allegations were found to be without merit,” he said. “I will not single out every one of the allegations in there because there are many, many allegations.”

The Special Litigation Committee was appointed to look into the charges shortly after the lawsuits were filed. The committee interviewed 24 people and scrutinized thousands of pages of documents during the eight-month investigation, according to Deep Marine Technology.

The initial lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court in Texas, and is currently pending. A separate lawsuit involving the company, filed in Delaware, contained almost the exact same allegation regarding a Coleman-Kazeminy payoff scheme. That case has since been dismissed, however, according to Deep Marine Technology.

Norm and Laurie Coleman at a 2008 campaign event (Photo by Paul Demko/Minnesota Independent)

Gilman says that the company will now seek to also have the Texas case thrown out. “We will move to dismiss the action in the Texas litigation as quickly as possible,” he said. “We were obviously waiting for this to be concluded.”

The announcement of the investigation’s findings comes just a day after Coleman conceded the protracted U.S. Senate contest to Franken. But Gilman insists that the timing is entirely coincidental.

“Frankly I’d never heard of Norm Coleman until this lawsuit,” he says. “Believe me we were trying to get this done as quickly as possible, because these things are expensive. But if you have an independent group doing this you can’t tell them what to do.”

Casey Wallace, the attorney representing McKim, argues that the investigation wasn’t independent, but rather was controlled by the company’s board of directors.

“We believe that the conclusions of the Special Litigation Committee are wrong, that the investigation was skewed to have a certain outcome,” he said. “The special litigation committee is the board; the board is the special litigation committee. We don’t believe it’s independent or serves any purpose.”

Wallace says the outcome of the investigation will have no affect on his client’s legal strategy. “We plan to go forward,” he said.

Coleman has said that all of the allegations are false and that the lawsuits are politically motivated. Kazeminy has also denied any wrongdoing in the matter.

Related: Texas firm “stonewalling” suit that names Coleman, lawyer says

Just days before the November election, Paul McKim filed an incendiary lawsuit against longtime Coleman patron Nasser Kazeminy in Harris County District Court. It accused Kazeminy and his business associates of financially sabotaging the company that McKim founded, Deep Marine Technology. It also accused Kazeminy of trying to funnel $100,000 to Coleman through a Minneapolis insurance firm where his wife worked.

An almost identical allegation was made in a separate lawsuit filed in Delaware. B.J. Thomas, the former chief financial officer for Deep Marine Technology, has since corroborated parts of the allegations in a deposition stemming from the Texas case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the relationship between Coleman and Kazeminy.

According to Casey Wallace, the attorney representing McKim, Deep Marine Technology is seeking to bog down the case. The company’s board of directors has formed a “special litigation committee” to investigate the allegations.

“The special litigation committee is doing everything to stonewall this whole deal,” Wallace says. “It’s phenomenal to me the positions that they’re taking.”

But he doesn’t believe the legal machinations are necessarily related to the political implications of the case, he said.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that it has to do with the Norm Coleman thing,” Wallace says. “Honestly the Norm Coleman issues are very small.”

There are no settlement talks scheduled in the case, and no trial date has been set.

Coleman is not a plaintiff in the case. He and his wife have denied receiving any money from Deep Marine Technology. Kazeminy has also denied seeking to funnel money to the former senator.

The deposition was part of a civil lawsuit filed by Thomas and former Deep Marine CEO Paul McKim in Texas in October 2008. The suit implicates Minnesota businessman Nasser Kazeminy in a scheme to funnel funds to then-U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

According to the allegations, an insurance-consulting contract required Kazeminy-controlled Deep Marine to pay the Hays Companies — the insurance firm  where Coleman’s wife, Laurie, works — $100,000, of which $75,000 was actually sent.

The deposition took place in Houston. The raw transcript text was uploaded to the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Political Animal blog on Friday. The Minnesota Independent has excerpted two long passages that deal directly with the Hays Companies and the Colemans.

The excerpts appear below, reformatted for easier reading. The first excerpt contains questioning of Thomas by Deep Marine attorney K.B. Battaglini. In the second excerpt the questions are from Casey Wallace, attorney for Thomas’ co-plaintiff, McKim. Thomas’ own lawyer, Charley A. Davidson, also speaks. According to the original transcript, the deposition took place over a full work day at the offices of Davidson’s firm, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, LLP.

Q. (BY MR. BATTAGLINI): …Now, before we leave the subject of insurance, did the company ever end up doing business with — did DMT or DMH ever end up doing business with the Hays Company?

A. Directly?

Q. Directly.

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. When was that?

A. That would have been in ‘07.

Q. Okay. And what was the nature of the business that the company was doing with the Hays Company?

A. There was an insurance consulting agreement.

Q. Okay. And is that something that you had looked at and signed off on?

A. And it was something that was sent to us, and the direction from Mr. Kazeminy was that we would enter into that agreement and pay the Hays group.

Q. What was the nature of the arrangement, what was Hays supposed to be doing pursuant to this agreement?

A. Consulting work related to insurance.

Q. All right. Prior to that time was anybody doing consulting work for your insurance program?

A. No.

Q. You had not had a consultant?

A. Not an outside consultant, no.

Q. All right. Did you have a basic understanding of the services that are performed by an insurance consultant?

A. Basic, yes.

Q. Okay. What was your understanding at the time of what an insurance consultant would offer a company?

A. An outside consultant for insurance?

Q. Yes.

A. I — we never employed one. I didn’t investigate it. I apologize. I misunderstood the question. I understood what our broker was doing.

Q. Okay. Separate and apart from what your broker was doing, did you have an understanding of what an insurance broker — I mean, excuse me, an insurance consultant would offer?

A. No. Not really.

Q. Was it ever explained to you the services that would be provided under such an agreement?

A. No.

(Exhibit 17 marked)

Q. (BY MR. BATTAGLINI) I’m going to hand you — and this is slightly out of order — Exhibit 17. I’ll go back to 16 later. It’s several pieces of paper with a paper clip on it attaching them together. I merely attached them for convenience. And I’d like to kind of walk you through what this is. Have you seen many of these documents before?

A. Yes.

Q. All right. Let’s take them in order. The one on the top is called a Disclosure of Service Fee. And it’s on Hays letterhead. And it’s dated March the 30th, 2007. It appears to be signed by Paul McKim. Do you recall having seen that page before?

A. Yes.

Q. All right. How did you come to have seen this page before? And I’m talking about back on or about March the 30th, 2007.

A. I believe it was e-mailed to me.

Q. All right. From the Hays Company?

A. I believe so, yeah.

Q. And did you have an understanding of what it was when you received it?

A. It was an agreement for consulting services.

Q. Okay. Well, the one page, at least, is a disclosure of a service fee, correct?

A. Correct.

Q. A fee was going to be assessed in exchange for services provided?

A. Yes.

Q. Was that your understanding?

A. That’s my understanding.

Q. Okay. Would you prefer to get that back in front of you?

A. Yes, please.

Q. All right.

(Pause in proceedings)

A. Okay.

Q. (BY MR. BATTAGLINI) Okay. And the amount of the service fee reflected on this first page of the exhibit is $100,000, correct?

A. Correct.

Q. What was your understanding at the time of what the $100,000 was to pay for?

A. That was to pay for Hays doing some consulting services.

Q. All right. And who was Hays going to consult with?

A. That is not particularly clear.

Q. It’s not clear from this page that we’re looking at or –

A. Correct.

Q. Okay. Did you have an understanding at the time of who Hays was going to consult with?

A. My best guess at the time was that they were going to be consulting with Mr. Kazeminy.

Q. Is that because under an oversight agreement that insurance discussions like that were going to be had with Mr. Kazeminy rather than with the people at DMT in Houston?

A. Mr. Kazeminy was quite capable of setting the degree of, his degree of involvement on any of those things.

Q. Okay. Prior to your receipt of this disclosure of service fee, who had the insurance company or the insurance broker, Aon, been dealing with on a regular basis in terms of the placement of insurance?

A. Merely myself as well as Paul McKim.

Q. Okay. Once this service fee document was signed by Mr. McKim, did you have any communications with Hays regarding insurance coverage?

A. I’m not sure as to the last time I would have had dinner with Mike Prinz, if it was subsequent to this or not.

Q. Okay. Do you know if Hays Company was having communications with someone in Minnesota working for Mr. Kazeminy, for example, regarding the placement of insurance coverage and consulting services in conjunction with that?

A. Do not know.

Q. Okay. If it did happen, it wasn’t reported to you?

A. Correct.

Q. Did you communicate with anyone in Minnesota working with Mr. Kazeminy’s companies for the purpose of discussing insurance?

A. Yes. The previous year we had gone through a quite a bit of analysis regarding where we were placing our, where we were placing our Jones Act coverage. And there was a, a new underwriter on the market that was offering some extremely low rates.

Q. Uh-huh. And who did you discuss that with?

A. Paul, myself, John Ellingboe, and Nasser were involved in that conversation.

Q. All right. On a routine basis, did you consult with people from time to time in Minnesota?

A. Regularly.

Q. Okay. And who did you normally consult with on administrative matters including insurance?

A. John Ellingboe and Dan Erickson.

Q. All right. Do you know whether or not Ellingboe or Erickson talked with the Hays Company about the insurance that was contemplated by this disclosure of service fee?

A. I have no — no. I don’t know.

Q. It’s possible; you just don’t know?

A. Absolutely.

Q. Okay. Now, it says here, for coverages, all property, executive risk, casualty and marine coverages associated with the operation known as Deep Marine Technology. Is that a fair summary of the types of coverages that you would expect to see on your business?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. It didn’t exclude anything in particular?

A. Not that I’m aware of.

Q. Now, if you’ll go to the fourth, starting at the fourth page and carrying on to the fifth page, there is an insurance summary for DMT. Is that something that you prepared or had prepared for you?

A. This is something the Aon would have prepared for us.

Q. All right. That’s reflective of Aon’s coverage for 2006 to 2007?

A. Yes.

Q. And was this something that Hays wanted to see so that they could consult with the company about coverage?

A. I — you know, I believe they probably requested it. This was something that we received from Aon as just a normal course of their providing coverage.

Q. Okay. Now, following that, following the pages that we just looked at, there are some invoices, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And let’s look at the first invoice. This is the Invoice No. 119056 dated April the 24th, 2007 from Hays Company to DMT. In fact, to your attention.

A. Yes.

Q. And it’s a quarterly installment in the amount of $25,000 designated as a service fee on the invoice. I see Paul McKim’s signature on there. Do you see that
in the middle of the page?

A. Yes.

Q. Why would his signature appear on an invoice like this?

A. To approve it.

Q. Would he normally approve something like this?

A. Yes or no. It depends.

Q. Would it first have to go by you in order to be approved by Mr. McKim?

A. No. It could have gone straight. You know, it wasn’t required to go to me before it went to Paul McKim.

Q. Okay. Do you recall having discussed this particular invoice, I’m talking about 119056, with Paul McKim?

A. I remember discussing it.

Q. Okay. What was the nature of the discussion, do you know?

A. The discussion was related to the invoice coming in and the related service agreement.

Q. Okay. Was there a discussion about whether or not it should be paid or anything of that nature?

A. Yes.

Q. What was that discussion about?

A. The discussion was about the contract with Hays and the question of what we were getting for it and did we, that this was something that Nasser wanted and so we needed to proceed along.

Q. Did you participate in any telephone call or meeting with Nasser Kazeminy or anyone else working from Minnesota having to do with this particular invoice where the nature of the call was why do we need to pay this invoice?

A. No.

Q. Did you take it upon yourself as CFO to look into this to see whether or not it should be paid?

A. No. We were already directed to enter into the agreement.

Q. Directed by whom?

A. Mr. Kazeminy.

Q. And what specifically do you remember by way of a direction to enter into this agreement? Did you participate in a phone call?

A. Mr. Kazeminy called me. We discussed. He indicated that this was a, he was going to work something like this out and, you know, that was to be expected.

Q. Did he explain to you on the telephone during this call why it was necessary to engage Hays for this service fee?

A. Mr. Kazeminy said he wanted to use Hays.

Q. Did he say for what purpose?

A. You know, there was a discussion about, about Hays and who was at Hays and that was somebody he wanted to use. And this — so this was, this was where things were going.

Q. Did you have an understanding following the phone call with Mr. Kazeminy of why DMT was paying $25,000 a quarter of a service fee to Hays?

A. Because Mr. Kazeminy wanted to. And he had an oversight agreement, and he was an over-50-percent shareholder. And this was something he wanted to do.

Q. Okay. But other than the fact that this was something that he wanted to do — and you’ve been clear about that — did you have an understanding of what the purpose was, the actual purpose?

A. I was not necessarily very clear on it. I was aware and convinced that Mr. Kazeminy wanted to do it and honestly believed that he had the authority to request it.

Q. Okay. Was there anytime when you said to Mr. Kazeminy or anyone else that the company should not pay $25,000 a quarter for this service fee?

A. Mr. McKim and I discussed the payment, the arrangement and payment to Hays and questioned what we, we were getting from it. And that was as far as we went.

Q. Okay. So you had no communication, direct communication with Mr. Kazeminy or anyone else in Minnesota where you said to the person on the other end of the phone, we’re not going to pay this amount?

A. I did not, no.

Q. Do you know if anyone else had such a conversation? Did you observe, did you hear anybody else have such a conversation?

A. No.

Q. Now, there were — if we keep flipping through the pages, there are a total of three invoices, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. And it’s your understanding that all three of those were paid?

A. Yes.

Q. And were you part of the approval process on any of these three?

A. Yes. I signed off on the last one, and then Paul signed off on it.

Q. Okay. So in conjunction with the approval and payment of these three invoices that are attached to this exhibit, was there any follow-up communication or disagreement or dispute that you recall regarding the payment of these invoices?

A. I was not involved in that. No.

MR. DAVIDSON: Take a brief break?

MR. BATTAGLINI: Sure.

(Break from 2:04 to 2:15)

Q. (BY MR. BATTAGLINI) Mr. Thomas, let me ask you one more question about Exhibit 17 before we turn to Exhibit 16. Exhibit 17 is the grouping of the documents that we were just talking about about the insurance payments to Hays.

A. Yes.

Q. Is there any document on there that, that was signed off by you or Mr. McKim that was falsified?

A. No. Not that I’m aware of.

Q. In other words, it appears to be consistent with your internal procedures for approving invoices and the payment of invoices?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. Thank you.

Q. (BY MR. WALLACE): … Do you recall your testimony with Mr. Battaglini with respect to the consulting services provided by Hays that are referenced in Thomas Exhibit No. 17?

A. Parts of it.

Q. Okay. You were asked that, about the fact that that represents Hays was to provide consulting services to DMT from April 1st, 2007 to April 1st, 2008, right?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And it was for consulting services, right?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. To your knowledge did DMT ever receive any consulting services from Hays?

A. Not that I’m aware of.

Q. But how much money was paid to Hays for those alleged consulting services?

A. Seventy –

Q. To your knowledge.

A. — five thousand while I was there.

Q. Okay. Okay. During your testimony with Mr. Battaglini, you said — and I’m going to quote you, quote: You know there was a discussion about, about Hays and who was at Hays and that somebody he wanted to use. And this — so this was, this was where things were going. Who was it and during — let me start over. You were having an exchange with Mr. Battaglini about conversations you had with Mr. Kazeminy and Hays, right?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you recall saying in your testimony with Mr. Battaglini, quote: You know, there was a discussion about, about Hays and who was at Hays and that somebody he wanted to use. And this — so this was, this was where things were going. Do you recall that testimony?

A. Yes.

Q. All right. And when you say he wanted to use, who was he?

A. He being Nasser Kazeminy.

Q. And who was it that Nasser Kazeminy wanted to use at Hays?

A. Laurie Coleman.

Q. And who is Laurie Coleman? If you know.

A. She’s the wife of Senator Coleman.

Q. Okay. In March of 2007, did you have a telephone conversation with Mr. Kazeminy about you, about Senator Norm Coleman?

A. That — there was just that one conversation.

Q. Okay. Now, that services agreement that you have before you which is Exhibit No. 17; is that right?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. It’s for services beginning in April of 2007?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And in March of 2007 you had a telephone conversation with Mr. Kazeminy about Senator Norm Coleman, right?

A. Well, it could have been in March.

Q. Okay. You’re not sure?

A. I’m not sure. It was sometime — if I’m going to put a timeline to it, I’m going to estimate sometime that first quarter of ‘07.

Q. Okay. Fair enough. Sometime before the existence of the document that you have before you which is Exhibit No. 17?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Okay. In that conversation that you had with Mr. Kazeminy, did he tell you, quote, United States senators don’t make shit, close quote? Or words to that effect?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you have any idea what he meant when telling you that by the context of the conversation you were having?

A. Other than the fact that senators don’t make a lot of money, not really. I’m not very good at reading more into it other than that.

Q. Fair enough. And I don’t want you to read anything into it that you can’t. Okay? Please don’t let me try to put words in your mouth. Can we have that agreement?

A. Sure.

Q. Okay. In this telephone conversation, it was specifically about Hays insurance, though, right? And about the use of Hays?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And he introduces in that conversation the subject about United States senators don’t make shit, correct?

A. That’s how the conversation started.

Q. And who works at Hays? That you know of personally.

A. Mike Prinz. Laurie Coleman. Well, I — you know, look. I can’t say that I know personally. I have heard that.

Q. Fair enough.

A. Mike Prinz I know works at Hays.

Q. That’s a fair testimony. You don’t have any personal knowledge that Laurie Coleman works there, correct?

A. Correct.

Q. Okay. Did you later approach Mr. McKim asking him whether it was appropriate to follow Mr. Kazeminy’s orders to use Hays?

A. We talked about this after the conversation.

Q. And what was Mr. McKim’s reaction?

A. Our first reaction for both of us was somewhat of a sense of relief in that the previous year we had gone through the discussions with the e-mail that I ultimately sent to Mr. Kazeminy relating to the use of Hays and an associated firm here in Houston to transfer our offshore insurance, or our insurance brokerage to. Neither one of us were very excited by that kind of move. We were very well taken care of by Aon. We were comfortable with the level of service and knew that the company was benefitting from the arrangement. We had ongoing use for Aon on a variety of issues and really did not want to change to an unknown entity that was significantly smaller in size.

Q. Okay. I’m a little bit confused by your response. Did you say at first you were relieved?

A. Yeah. We were relieved because this meant that we weren’t going to be getting our chops busted about changing to Hays. For doing — for, actually, the brokerage of our insurance and the ongoing, and the ongoing brokerage arrangement and who was going to be taking care of and servicing us.

Q. I see. Because all Hays was going to do was provide consulting services as opposed to providing insurance.

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Okay. But from the date of the conversation when he told you U.S. senators don’t make shit until the expiration of a year later, to your knowledge, DMT never got any consulting services from Hays?

A. No, sir. Not that I’m aware.

Q. But they were paid $75,000 of corporate money for that?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Okay. Was there — did Mr. McKim later ever make an objection to any of the payments to Hays, to your knowledge?

A. Paul was very unhappy about making the payments and grumbled whenever, whenever one of the invoices came through.

Q. Did he grumble to Mr. Kazeminy about it?

A. I don’t know if he did or not.

Q. Did Mr. Kazeminy ever let it be known to you in some form of communication that this was his company and that you and Mr. McKim better just follow his orders in paying Hays?

A. He did not — I did not have that portion of a conversation with Nasser ever.

The lawsuit was filed by company founder Paul McKim. Coleman is not a party to the case, but the allegations upended his re-election bid in the final days of the campaign. A separate lawsuit filed in Delaware contains an almost identical description of Kazeminy’s attempts to provide money to Coleman.

McKim’s attorney, Casey Wallace, had argued that there was no need for a delay in the court case. “These are simple allegations,” he told MnIndy last month. “This is not an Enron-ish type case. They’ve had plenty of time to do their investigation.”

A lawsuit alleging that Norm Coleman’s longtime associate Nasser Kazeminy attempted to funnel $75,000 to the senator should proceed without delay, says attorney Casey Wallace.

Last week, lawyers representing Deep Marine Holdings, a Houston-based company of which Kazeminy is a primary stockholder, sought a stay that would delay proceedings in the case for at least two months. They argued that an internal investigation set up by the company should be completed before any more court proceedings are held.

But Wallace, the attorney representing plaintiff Paul McKim, the founder and chief executive officer of Deep Marine Holdings, insists there’s no need for a delay.

“These are simple allegations,” he said on the phone from Houston. “This is not an Enron-ish type case. They’ve had plenty of time to do their investigation.”

A pair of lawsuits making nearly identical allegations about Kazeminy’s efforts to funnel money to Coleman were filed in Texas and Delaware courts just prior to the November election. The accusation is just one detail in a messy corporate dispute involving Deep Marine Holdings that has McKim at loggerheads with his former business partners.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has subsequently launched a probe into Coleman’s ties to Kazeminy.

Coleman has denied the allegations made in the suits, dismissing them as a last-second political smear. But as the U.S. Senate contest continues to drag on more than two months after election day, the cases have begun moving, albeit slowly, through the courts.

While McKim’s attorney believes the case should proceed without delay, he doesn’t see any political calculations behind the effort to postpone the lawsuit.

“Absolutely not,” Wallace said. “If there were I’d be happy to tell you yes. I absolutely do not believe that to be the case.”

A decision on whether to postpone the Texas lawsuit could come as soon as Monday, when a hearing is scheduled on the matter.

The case in Delaware, meanwhile, is also creeping forward. Arguments on a motion to dismiss the case are due by the end of next month.

“As another Democratic group that spent millions of dollars attempting to defeat me calls for a politically motivated investigation, I want to be clear that I not only welcome such an investigation, but I am eager to have it move forward immediately. The fact that a United States Senator is being used as a tool of extortion by private parties should be of concern to all Minnesotans. I reiterate that none of the allegations which attempt to besmirch my family’s good name and reputation are true. This investigation should move forward, and it is my hope that those who were behind this matter, their motives and what their connections may be to my political opponents be reviewed aggressively by the appropriate authorities and the media. This matter, which has emerged again as a result of the tactics of my political opponents, during a recount, ought to raise even further suspicions in the minds of Minnesotans as to its motives and purposes.”