Julio Ramirez

If Anyone Can Tell Us How This Massive Pension Conspiracy Worked, It's Probably Julio Ramirez

Moe Tkacik | May 13, 2009, 4:42PM

It looks like a major figure in the ever-expanding public pension fund scandal is cooperating with New York AG Andrew Cuomo's probe.

The player in question is Julio Ramirez, a former Los Angeles politico who until March worked for the tony boutique investment bank Blackstone. In the nineties, Ramirez managed one of former LA mayor Richard Riordan's campaigns and worked on various others. Yesterday Cuomo announced Ramirez had pleaded guilty to securities fraud in the scheme allegedly masterminded by Hank Morris, the former top adviser to Comptroller Alan Hevesi, along with David Loglisci, the chief investment officer of the New York general pension fund. Ramirez could be the key to unwinding the Western wings of what Cuomo yesterday called "a matrix of corruption - which grows more expansive and interconnected by the day."

The AG office says Ramirez got involved in the scheme in 2003 while he was working for two hedge funds on behalf of Wetherly Capital Group, a well-connected placement agency in LA. Morris, who effectively became the "gatekeeper" of pension investments after Hevesi won the 2002 comptroller election, promised to secure investments for Ramirez's clients if he gave him a 40% cut of his fees. Unbeknownst to the pension funds and money managers, Ramirez wired a cut of his fees into a shell company Morris incorporated called PB Placement. In a statement Wetherly president Dan Weinstein called Ramirez a "part-time employee who...dragged the firm into this controversy."

Read more »