Coleman hires defense attorney

Sen. Norm Coleman, his wife and two friends have retained top
criminal attorneys in connection with lawsuits that allege one backer conspired
to funnel up to $100,000 to the Minnesota Republican.

{mosads}Two lawsuits accuse Coleman backer Nasser Kazeminy of attempting
to send funds from a company he controlled to an insurance company where Laurie
Coleman worked before attempting to move the funds directly to Norm Coleman.
Federal investigators are in the early stages of probing Kazeminy’s actions.

Neither Coleman is alleged in the suits to have committed
wrongdoing.

The senator has hired Douglas Kelley, a former assistant U.S.
Attorney with a background in both criminal and election law. Kelley did not
return an e-mail seeking comment, but his website promises his cases “are
handled discretely so that his greatest achievements on behalf of clients are
known only to the entities involved.”

Laurie Coleman, Kazeminy and Jim Hays, who owns the insurance
company, have all retained their own attorneys in the case, the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune reported.

The FBI is investigating the payments, which began in the spring
of 2007, and whether they are connected to renovations done on Coleman’s
house. 

Those renovations, which started in 2006, ran well over budget to
more than $400,000. Around the same time Kazeminy is alleged to have attempted
the payments, Coleman moved into a friend’s Capitol Hill apartment in
Washington, D.C., and began paying rent.

“Sen.
Coleman has called for an aggressive investigation by the appropriate
authorities for these baseless allegations that are nothing more than political
and financial extortion. To that end,
he has retained counsel to work cooperatively with authorities when such an
investigation is conducted, and to quickly expose these allegations for what
they are, and to hold those who made these false allegations against the senator
accountable,” said Coleman spokesman Luke Friedrich. “To this date the senator,
nor his legal counsel, have been informed that any such investigation is
underway.”