Jane Sanders, the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders- the socialist candidate in 2016’s presidential race has been called a champion of the little man while advocating for massive wealth redistribution, at the same time owning multiple vacation homes, and driving a conspicuously lavish sports car- is under investigation for bank fraud.
Jane Sanders is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into numerous allegations of committing fraud against a bank during her tenure as the president of Burlington College. The FBI is conducting interviews of all relevant witnesses who were in contact with Jane Sanders between the years 2004 and 2011 when she held the position of college president at Burlington.
According to the allegations, Sanders is believed to have falsified loan application documents in an attempt to expand the grounds of the college. The allegations go on to claim that on several occasions Jane Sanders cited an inflated amount of donation money that the school was expecting to receive. The exaggerated amounts, it is alleged, were entered into loan application forms by Sanders at the people’s United Bank.
It is alleged that Jane Sanders reported to the bank that Burlington College was expecting to receive no less than $2.6 million in donations in order to qualify for a loan amounting to $6.5 million. In reality, however, the actual donation amounted to just $676,000, donated over the course of four years.
Sanders had planned to expand the college grounds when she first became president of the college and directed the institution to borrow $10 million in order to finance the expansion by purchasing 33 acres of premium lakefront property from a local Roman Catholic Diocese. This would have more than doubled the previous size of the college.
A former chair of the board told reporters, “When the college bought that property, everybody took a huge breath and thought, wow. They’re swinging for the fences. Can they really do this?”
One investigator quotes one of the donors, Corinne Maietta, who said Sanders had promised the bank that she had pledged $1 million to the school- but that the donor had never, in fact, signed any agreement that such a donation would be made.
A local Vermont newspaper spoke with Maietta, who said she had told Sanders that she would provide an unspecified amount of money to the college in the event of her death.
“I never said how much, and I never signed anything,” she said.
She donated less than $100,000 to the school before its closure, according to the report. When it became clear that the donations would not stack up to the promised amounts that Sanders had entered into the loan application form, the bank withdrew the college’s line of credit. As a result, the 40-year-old college was forced to close its doors, as it was unable to support the immense debt accumulated under Jane Sanders’ leadership.
When Jane Sanders left Burlington College, she was replaced by Carol Moore. After the school shut down for good, Moore wrote to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“The College’s fate was set when the board hired an inexperienced president and approved the purchase of a $10 million property,” Moore wrote.
Moore said that the FBI asked her about the allegations and agents are reported to have contacted a number of other people connected to Sanders as well over the past year.
Ron Leavitt, another donor, was also questioned by the FBI and had this to say; “Was there collusion between Sanders and the bank? Did she distort financial records to get a loan from the bank?”
He says that he donated $30,000 to Burlington College, yet his donations are listed as two donations adding up to $60,000 in total. He says, “I don’t remember doing that.”
These allegations surfaced in January of 2016 when the vice chairman of the Vermont Republican Party sent a letter to the US attorney requesting that an investigation be made into what appeared to be a substantial case of bank fraud.
When reporters asked Jane Sanders husband, Senator Bernie Sanders about the allegations, he replied, “This implication came from Donald Trump’s campaign manager in Vermont. Let me leave it at that because it would be improper at this point for me to say anything more.”
It is strange, to say the least, that at this time of trouble- and apparent guilt- the best thing Bernie Sanders can think to do is blame Donald Trump. One is almost tempted to push the Senator a bit further to see if he would be willing to cast blame on Vladimir Putin as well.
~ American Liberty Report
