Ron Leavitt was driving from a master gardener class to his Naples, Fla., home three months ago when he received a surprising call from his wife.
“She said, ‘The FBI is here to talk to you about Burlington College,'” he recalled. “‘When are you going to be home?'”
The semiretired orthopedic surgeon had moved from Vermont to Florida five years earlier, but his association with the shuttered liberal arts college — and the wife of a United States senator who served as its president — had followed him to the Sunshine State. When he returned home to his gated community later that afternoon, Leavitt found two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents waiting for him with plenty of questions about a $30,000 donation he had made to the school.
“It was a little strange,” he said of the unexpected visit.
Leavitt is one of five people formerly associated with Burlington College who have confirmed to Seven Days that they were contacted, interviewed and, in some cases, subpoenaed by federal authorities over the past 15 months. While much about the inquiry remains shrouded in mystery, documents and interviews suggest that it is a serious criminal investigation focused on a $6.5 million bank loan application the college made in 2010 to pay for a $10 million lakeside campus.
The woman who signed that application? Former Burlington College president Jane O’Meara Sanders, the wife of 2016 presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The investigation appears to stem from a January 2016 complaint filed by Vermont Republican Party vice chair Brady Toensing on behalf of Catholic parishioner Wendy Wilton, a conservative activist and Rutland City treasurer. Toensing alleged that O’Meara Sanders committed federal loan fraud by inflating the number of fundraising commitments she had secured to buy the 32-acre North Avenue campus from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. When those donations failed to materialize, the college defaulted on its loans — costing the church, which financed a portion of the sale, between $1.6 million and $2 million.
Neither the FBI nor the U.S. attorney for the District of Vermont would comment on the matter. But according to Carol Moore, who served as the college’s final president until it closed last May, an FBI agent who contacted her “three or four weeks ago” called it “an ongoing investigation.”
Moore said the focus of the feds’ questions was clear: “Was there any collusion between Jane Sanders and the bank?” Moore said, quoting the FBI agent. “Did she falsify records in order to get the loan from the bank?”
Moore said the focus of the feds’ questions was clear: Did [Jane O’Meara Sanders] falsify records in order to get the loan from the bank?
O’Meara Sanders and her husband’s Senate staff have largely ignored questions from the press about her tenure at Burlington College, which began in 2004 and ended with her ouster in 2011. But in an unusual statement issued Monday through the digital services firm Revolution Messaging, former Sanders presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver noted that Republican operatives were behind the request for an investigation.
“Jane has not been contacted by the FBI or any other authority and only knows as much as news reports indicate,” Weaver said in the statement, which noted that he was “speaking for the Sanders family.”
The investigation appears to be serious enough that authorities have issued federal grand jury subpoenas to procure documents. Vermont Educational and Health Buildings Financing Agency executive director Robert Giroux, whose state agency issued tax-exempt bonds to cover Burlington College’s $6.5 million loan, clammed up when asked about the situation Monday.
“I can’t make a comment on that right now,” he said, explaining that his attorneys had reached out to federal authorities for guidance about what he could say. “That’s typical when you have a grand jury proceeding.”
Other institutions and individuals involved responded similarly. Spokespeople for the diocese and People’s United Bank, which provided the loan, declined to comment, as did Adam Dantzcher, who chaired the college’s board of trustees during O’Meara Sanders’ presidency. Christine Plunkett, who served as O’Meara Sanders’ chief financial officer and succeeded her as president, declined comment on Monday and then hung up on Seven Days.
Not everyone has kept quiet. Former board member Sara Adsit-McCuin told the paper last week that the FBI had contacted her “a couple of weeks ago” and interviewed her in person.
Rumors of a federal probe have circulated in Burlington for more than a year. When the college announced in May 2016 that it would close due to the “crushing weight of the debt” incurred by O’Meara Sanders, reporters asked Moore at a press conference whether the feds were investigating. She twice declined to answer the question.
But new documents obtained by VTDigger.org last week show that, as late as February 2017, there was an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation — and it involved one of the top federal prosecutors in the state: Paul Van de Graaf, criminal chief of Vermont’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In a December 2016 email to a state Agency of Education lawyer about Burlington College records that the state had in storage, Van de Graaf wrote, “I think we need to make sure that there is nothing significant to our federal investigation before [the records] are destroyed.” In February 2017, the AOE attorney, Molly Bachman, informed Van de Graaf, “FBI Special agent Patrick Hanna asked for another month to review records at the AOE. That is fine.”
It was hardly the feds’ first crack at those documents. According to Coralee Holm, the college’s former dean of operations and advancement, the FBI subpoenaed the institution a year earlier, in February 2016, and interviewed Holm on campus at least four times over the next several months.
“I cooperated with their request, which was to provide any documentation that pertained to the purchase of the new property as it related to fundraising for that property,” she said.
Holm said she turned over a filing cabinet and three or four banker boxes filled with donor files, along with emails she found in accounts that belonged to O’Meara Sanders and Plunkett. She said the FBI provided her with a hard drive on which to transfer the electronic documents.
Despite her best efforts, Holm said, she was “unsuccessful in locating documentation of the gifts and pledges” the FBI was seeking. Asked whether she had stumbled upon anything noteworthy in O’Meara Sanders’ emails, the former dean said, “I prefer not to comment on that.”
The crux of Toensing’s 2016 complaint was that, in order to secure the $6.5 million loan, O’Meara Sanders “successfully and intentionally engaged in a fraudulent scheme to actively conceal and misrepresent material facts from a federal financial institution.” Though O’Meara Sanders certified that Burlington College had locked down $2.6 million in future gifts and grants, the school realized only $676,000 of that over the next four years, according to audits.
As Seven Days reported in June 2015, O’Meara Sanders wrote in her 2010 VEHBFA loan application that “one gift of $1-million has been committed and another $1-million has been verbally pledged.” In August 2014, Plunkett told WCAX-TV that she had learned after taking the reins at Burlington College that the $1 million gift was actually a bequest — and therefore not immediately available.
“The understanding at the time was that it was a cash gift, and we proceeded until we understood it was a bequest,” Plunkett told the station.
Accompanying the loan application was a spreadsheet listing confirmed contributions, the dates they were expected and the initials of the donors. Leavitt, the Naples surgeon, was among those whose initials were included in the document. His late wife, Mary Haas, had been on Burlington College’s board of trustees for several years before her 2009 death. Leavitt succeeded her and served until he left Vermont in 2012.
But as VTDigger first noted in a September 2015 story, the spreadsheet indicated that Leavitt had pledged to make two $30,000 contributions — even though the former trustee later recalled promising just one such donation.
“I don’t remember doing that,” he reiterated to Seven Days this week, referring to the supposed second pledge.
According to Leavitt, the FBI agents who visited his home earlier this year were focused on what he had promised Burlington College and when he had promised it.
“I didn’t exactly understand what their goal was,” he said.
The Sanders family was concerned enough about the investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign that O’Meara Sanders’ daughter, Carina Driscoll, asked that the school notify her of any press inquiries it received, according to Holm. Burlington College reached out to the campaign “on at least three occasions,” she said.
“Carina was very quick to want to be knowing if anything came up,” Holm said. “People were making inquiries, so we did make the campaign managers of the [presidential] campaign aware of that, and we kept Carina apprised at the time, but we did not go into any detail.”
Driscoll declined to comment.
The senator’s critics and opponents have taken note over the years of his wife’s rocky tenure at Burlington College.
In September 2014, Skip Vallee — a Shelburne gasoline distributor, former ambassador and conservative provocateur — bought $10,000 worth of television advertisements accusing the senator of hypocrisy because he benefited from a $200,000 “golden parachute” when his wife left the school. An opposition research file compiled by 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton and obtained by WikiLeaks includes five pages of news stories about O’Meara Sanders’ time at Burlington College.
Toensing himself sought to tie the senator to the controversy in his initial complaint, alleging that O’Meara Sanders’ “special political status not only helped enable these apparent offenses, but also ensures her protection from any sort of state scrutiny or enforcement.” The Republican lawyer wrote that the couple had “built political careers pontificating against corporate corruption and claiming to want to help the needy” but had harmed the diocese and the “vulnerable Vermonters” they serve.
Though the family’s response Monday to news of the investigation was measured in tone, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs lashed out at Toensing when he filed his complaint in January 2016, calling it “recycled, discredited garbage.”
In a statement issued at the time, Briggs wrote, “These kinds of attacks on family members of candidates are one of the reasons why the American people are so disgusted with politics in America today.”
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This article appears in May 3-9, 2017.
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Interesting how republiKKKlans never propose anything which helps anyone but a few of themselves, and the other time they spend either squealing like stuck pigs or doing everything they can to destroy anything good anyone else tries to do. I’m so glad for our supermajorities.
That stiff arm Bernie has been giving Vermont press for years isn’t helping the Sanders Family cause now. About time we got the spotlight shining on these do gooders.
Now about that lakefront 3rd home…
Anything Jane and Bernie want Jane and Bernie get.
In the true fashion of an Orwellian, Republican, alternative facts smoke and mirrors show, Toensing claims that O’Meara Sanders “harmed the diocese and the “vulnerable Vermonters” they serve.” Really Toensing??? What about the harm the diocese did to itself and the “vulnerable Vermonters” they serve when they allowed their pedophile priests to molest their parishioners’ children for years on end? Wake up Toensing!!! That is why the property was put up for sale in the first place, to pay the victims of the diocese!!! For you and Wilton to conveniently ignore that fact while talking about “vulnerable Vermonters” is rather pathetic.
Maybe she can share the wealth in prison…
ksmith610….like most liberals you don;t know your history.
Freeing the slaves and the 1964 Civil Rights Act are just two little proposals I can think of right off the bat.
Meanwhile, you losers try to force perves on women and children in the bathroom, think it’s more important to import terrorists than protect American Citizens!
so two wrongs make a right Ernie??
Donald Trump is a rapist.
“Interesting how republiKKKlans “… got your history a little backwards there bud. But typical of the liberal mindset. Jim Crow, off subject, was Dems.
But in this article we see that “using someone else’s money”, the progressive’s answer to everything, only works until it is gone and, here, probably “never was!” People need to do history on the progressive/socialist movements… go back to pre-WWII and come forward. China is Red because of progressives in the White House, Korea is split because of the same thing… Russia got “the bomb” earlier, changing history forever, because of progressives in the White House. But no one will study the past and thus we will most likely repeat it.
Bernie made a deal with Hillary that if he dropped out of the race, Hillary would make sure Jane wasn’t indicted. Oops. I guess elections have consequences.
I dislike that Donald Trump is a rapist too. Sad!
They would have driven the whole country into bankruptcy if they had won.
LOL now she gets to feel the “bern” (burn)!
Brooklyn Bernie and Jane would look good in leg irons and orange jump suits, picking up trash along the side of the road.
What about the MILLIONS she made off Bernie’s presidential campaign? Just another alpha liberal leading the lemmings……
Sanders is a fraud. After 25 Years in Washington, Sanders Says: Im Not Exactly a Career Politician.
All of you falsely accusing Trump of rape had better do a little research on the true womanizing rapist B.J. Clinton the one that was impeached and lost his law license because of his womanizing. Yes the one that Hillary demonized and hired people to terrorize B.J. Clinton’s victims.
LOOK it up don’t take my word for it use your God given brains and figure it out for yourselfs..His (B.J. Clinton’s) M.O. was to bite the lips of his victims as a warning to keep their mouth shut.
Roger Dane…………………..Trump didn’t rape anybody. He grabbed their pussy. Get your facts straight.
“Briggs wrote, “These kinds of attacks on family members of candidates are one of the reasons why the American people are so disgusted with politics in America today.”
No. The reason we’re disgusted with politics in America today is the caliber of the politicians. They’re all perfectly comfortable lying to and cheating people out of their hard-earned money. Like these two.
She is a communist she is innocent.
“Jeff Weaver noted that Republican operatives were behind the request for an investigation.” The fact that there is a question about actions taken and possible collusion is the reason there is an investigation.
Fred – correction – he TALKED about grabbing pussy – no one even claims he actually did it!
Now we know why bern wants the government to pay for collage education. so his wiff can make money
Sounds like the same old Liberal problem…what to do when they spend all of everyone else’s money. This just could be simple naivety.
Here we have yet another worthwhile story you will never find discussed, or even mentioned, in the American mainstream media.
Dacha Bernie…
So “free college” (only liberals believe things are actually free in life) Sanders committed fraud, what a shock.
The corrupt, hateful, intolerant (unless you are part of their group think narrative) Leftist.
As is often said, liberalism is a mental disorder.
With Trump in charge, she may actually be prosecuted, if Hillary wouldn’t have lost, it would have been ignored—via the Obama style DOJ/FBI.
Odd, she perpetrates bank loan fraud around the same time period the Sanders family acquired a new lake house.
Maduro style huh?
Kind of like the community organizing Obama, who now gets half a million to deliver his tired old speech for an hour to, wait for it——-Big Wall Street BANKS!
Heartless to be a conservative at twenty, brainless to be a liberal at 40—to paraphrase WC.
There is an existential difference between the well-to-do and the rich. The law still applies to the well-to-do. The rich get away with it. The Clintons, Trumps, Kennedys, Soros, Pelosi and the rest never are bothered about their lawbreaking. Sanders is unfortunately only well-to-do.
Lock her up!!!!! Lock her up!!!!!!
Well…at LEAST the FBI is investigating…though we know darned well that Democrats–especially Socialists–are NEVER held to account. I mean, they may be investigated…subpoenaed…questioned…probed…etc…but there will be NO consequences. No jail time, certainly, but probably not even any fines. It will go away. Honest John Comey will see to that, if nobody else does.
There is not a socialist/communist on the face of the planet that does not lie! It is a large part of their dielectric plan to enslave the world with their stinking brand of political poison! Hang her and her husband both!
There is not a socialist/Communist that does not lie like a guilty dog! It is a large part of their dialectic plan to enslave the world with their stinking political poison. Hang both her and her husband both they are guilty as sin!
Faking information to obtain other people’s money. She is a liberal, you do you expect? It is like picking up a rattl snake, taking it home and expect it not to bite.
Bwuhaaa, started by Killary to kill off any opponents but now it lives on exposing the sordid affairs of liberals in general. I hope Trumps sends all of you swamp rats to prison. Anyone who is against Trump is definitely for the status quo and that goes double for any RINO loving statist twits. Drain the swamp and hang the rats.
So both democrat candidates were being investigated by the FBI while Obama was turning the Intel Community loose on Trump? Priceless.
All talk and no action. This crap never changes.
Figures Bernie’s wifee would be a crook hell ANY democrat is a crook and a liar
so this started 15 months ago BUT “Jeff Weaver noted that Republican operatives were behind the request for an investigation”
Hillary Clinton opposition file on O’Meara in Feb 2016……………………..
Sounds like Clinton Crime Family payback to me
What a surprise yet another crooked democRAT
come one folks, she is guilty and you know it. and do not tell me her husband the good senator sanders didn’t know….feel the bern?
Bernie the Economic Genius probably gave her advice on inflating the donations to support the loan. After all he and most socialist ” economists” live in a fantasy world. Just pretend the donations are greater, what could happen.
I hope this investigation ends early because Bernie has to get down to Venezuela and using his genius on how the markets work will get them out of the boneless pit they are in.
(BTW I heard he was flying down with Sean Penn who can explain to the starving Venezuelans why Chavez and Maduro are heroes and great leaders.)
Why doesnt he sell one if his 3 houses he has. Guess he is one of those socialist like stalin mao putin etc…
Funny how the last obe he bought right after he endorsed the almost trillionare hilliary clinton. Yet the dnc says it understands the little guy…..
The FBI will investigate ,,, the same FBI the mostly couldn’t find their own azz in a well lighted,one stall,Job Johnny. And ,,,, even if they did stumble across something very,very, illegal ,,, there would be no real penalty given to Mrs. Bernie because she is Royalty ,,, the Political Class . You know ,,, like the Clintons.
The scam was all a win-win for the socialist hag. She made lots of money from a fiduciary trust, stuck it to the Catholic Church, and racked up tons of debt. Liberals love this holy trinity of “public service.”
“Interesting how republiKKKlans”: Don’t know any history, do you? The KKK was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, part of how the Solid South remained solidly Democrat. Black members of Congress from the former Confederacy after the Civil War were almost always Republicans. The courts upheld the right of the Democratic Party to exclude blacks from their primaries.
Now you see why progressives don’t like history taught.
Much like John Teirney, former crooked congressman from Marxachusetts (sorry for the redundancy), who did not know his wife was laundering money for her brother’s illegal gambling enterprise out of their joint checking account. Nothing will happen to Bernie’s corrupt wife.
If crooks use spouses to move money around, why shouldn’t they be under the microscope?
It will boil down to having all the pledges for the college up until Bernie lost to Hillary. A pay to play scam run by Sanders very similar to the pay to play international charity of the Clinton’s that closed down shortly after SHE lost the election.
So which is worse, an FBI probe or and Alien probe?
Regarding the idiots who use terms like ” the RebublKKKan party’ and in response to John McCartney post above citing that the Democratic party is the party of Racism which absolutely correct.,let me add to John’s response
The Democrats are STILL the party of Racism it took a new form when the Dems so eloquently stated by LBJ in passing Great Society legislation we will have those n888gers voting Democrat for the next 200 years”
basically, the Dems put blacks on a new type of slave plantation.
Of course there was an investigation in 2016. Wouldn’t want a Bernie presidency, now would we?
ALL DimoRats are thieves.
Maybe she can share a prison cell with Hillary Clinton. Burnie Slanders is a fraud and a coward. He had the chance to run on the Green Party Ticket, Jill Stein offered it to him and he declined. He would not have won and would have put in Trump in office, but it was going to happen anyway, and his views would have aligned.
Fraud and Coward!
KSMITH610: If Melania Trump had done anything like this it would have been spread all over the National news, via Clinton New Network (CNN), and all the other TV stations, as well as every Leftist newspaper and magazine in the world. Because it was done the wife of a Dumorat, it’s small news tucked away and barely reported on.
Drip, drip, drip, drip. It is coming out, slowly but surely.
Falsifying loan applications to banks and other federally-regulated fiinancial institutions for personal benefit is a serious federal felony. If the feds can prove Sanders falsified the loan documents to bankroll her $200K golden parachute she could be in trouble. If not, she may be guilty only of blundering incompetence in an honest effort to bail out a doomed sinking ship.
Bernie Sanders and Jane Sanders become trapped in their own self created social justice warrior “kafkaesque” vortex!
Cynics abound here. So far, we can see some overly-optimistic financial projections. Let’s let the rest of the facts come out before reaching further conclusions.
Despite her best efforts, Holm said, she was “unsuccessful in locating documentation of the gifts and pledges” the FBI was seeking. Asked whether she had stumbled upon anything noteworthy in O’Meara Sanders’ emails, the former dean said, “I prefer not to comment on that.”
So… just like what happened over at the IRS and just like HRC playing dumb with her private server. Why do these people get away with such absurd statements?