WASHINGTON - There's always a possible bond angle - even in the Lewinsky affair.
Monica Lewinsky testified that President Clinton was on the phone with a Florida sugar baron named something like "Fanuli" just after he tried to break up with her on Feb. 19, 1996, according to the report by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Records show that Clinton talked for more than 20 minutes with Alfonso Fanjul of Palm Beach, Fla., on that Presidents Day, the report says. But the report does not say what Clinton and Fanjul talked about, and neither Fanjul nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.
Alfonso Fanjul and his brother Jose, market participants may recall, owned and held executive positions at FAIC Inc., the Miami-based broker- dealer that was forced to shut down after the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating allegations of pay-to-play.
Clinton's conversation with Fanjul came just 17 days before the SEC, in its first case dealing with Rule G-37, charged that FAIC violated the rule when the Fanjuls used FAIC-affiliated companies to make thousands of dollars of political contributions to state and local officials in Florida who may have been influential in then selecting the firm to help underwrite municipal bonds.
The SEC announced on March 7, 1996, that FAIC had agreed to settle the charges by paying $200,000 in civil penalties, disgorging $224,205 in fees, and paying $15,755 in interest on those fees. The commission also revoked the firm's broker-dealer license, although the firm's lawyer said at the time that the firm had gone out of business the previous June.
The SEC never brought charges against the Fanjuls themselves, even though sources said they had received a Wells notice the previous October notifying them of the staff's intent to seek charges against them.
Reuters, which first disclosed the reference in the report to the Clinton-Fanjul phone call, reported yesterday that the Fanjuls - who operate Flo-Sun Inc., one of Florida's biggest sugarcane companies - contributed $34,500 to the Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic Party in 1996, and that Alfonso Fanjul was one of Clinton's campaign trustees and an adviser on matters such as U.S.-Cuba policy.
