Group calls for fraud investigation into Jane Sanders' land deal - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

A group of Catholic parishioners want the U.S. Attorney for Vermont to investigate Jane Sanders, the wife of Bernie Sanders, for alleged bank fraud stemming from a land deal she secured as President of Burlington College.  

"It appears that Ms. Sanders misrepresented confirmed donations in order to get that loan," said Brady Toensing, an attorney and Vice Chair of the Vermont Republican Party.

Toensing is representing a group of Catholic parishioners.  He alleges Jane Sanders cost the Diocese between $1.6 and $2 million dollars in 2010 and 2011.  He says she misrepresented the amount of money Burlington college could raise to support a land purchase from the Catholic Church. A loan from People's United Bank was contingent upon Sanders and the college coming up with more than $2 million dollars. "The bank understood it as confirmed donations," Toensing said.

The documents sent to U.S. Attorney Eric Miller suggest Sanders never secured the donations she told the bank she already had.

"So a financial institution would go ahead and ascertain how firm those pledges are. It would do it's due diligence," said Craig Nolan, a former U.S. Attorney. Nolan says investigating the alleged fraud would require getting an explanation from the college as to why the donations never came through. "The first thing I do is call the FBI and I talk to the FBI about their thoughts. Probably schedule an interview with the financial institution," he said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Senator Bernie Sanders called this nothing more than mud slinging in a presidential election year. "This recycled, discredited garbage is the handiwork of Brady Toensing, the Vice Chairman of the Vermont Republican Party. 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," the statement said.
 
"My complaint is driven from facts -- driven from facts derived from a public record," Toensing said.

Amid controversy, Jane Sanders resigned as the school's president in 2011, and the school has a largely new board of trustees. "From the board's perspective, this is an incident that occurred in the past that we have no knowledge of personally on the board, and we view it, frankly, as a distraction from our mission right now which is to continue the forward movement of the college," said Yves Bradley, Chair of the college's board of trustees.

Toensing's letter is a request for investigation, not a confirmation of one. U.S. Attorney Eric Miller says every such request is evaluated for appropriate action. He says his office is committed to enforcing federal law in a neutral and impartial manner.

Channel 3 has previously reported that Sanders told the bank she had "pledges" for more than two million dollars, not "secured donations," as Toensing calls them.

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