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Did Denise Stiff Hillary Post-Pardon?

Friday, August 31, 2001 By Roger Friedman Did Denise Stiff Hillary Post-Pardon?

It seems as though Denise Rich — songwriter, fundraiser, Democratic donor, and ex-wife of former federal fugitive Marc Rich — reneged on a $40,000 pledge to the Hillary Clinton Senate campaign.

In an article written by yours truly in the September issue of Gotham Magazine, sources who worked for the Hillary for Senate campaign told me a most interesting story regarding Denise and a bill she promised to pay for the campaign.

The money has to do with Hillary's birthday celebration last October at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. The fabulous (is there anything else to call her?) Cher required a private plane to bring her in from California so she could perform a couple of songs at the star-studded show. The plane cost $40,000. Denise, according to the organizers, pledged to pay the bill as one of her ongoing donations to various Democratic party needs during the last election year.

But Denise never anted up. According to sources who worked on the event, by the time the invoice was presented to Rich, it was after January 20, 2001, when President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. "Denise stiffed us," one organizer told me. "The campaign wound up paying the bill rather than going after her. It was clear she wasn't going to pay once Marc got his pardon."

In fact, after pouring money into Democratic causes for four years, Denise Rich has made not a single political campaign donation in 2001. Her supporters point out that she may be afraid of having her checks returned, but in reality it's hard to remember any politician of any party sending money back to donors unless a campaign is cancelled. And even that's stretching it.

Some other revelations from the Gotham article include the news that Denise's incarcerated ex-boyfriend, Dr. Niels Lauersen, has a grown son and grandchild living in California. This came as news to almost everyone who knows Lauersen in NewYork. Previous press reports indicated that the fertility specialist was childless. But his son, a medical student, was the product of what they used to call out of wedlock (Lauersen wasn't married to the mom). Ironically, the son himself had the same situation one generation later, producing a baby at the age of 17 without the benefit of a marriage license.

Friends of Lauersen told me they are appalled that when Denise could have exacted a favor from the White House to get someone a pardon, she didn't use it for the doctor but instead for Marc Rich. Lauersen is in prison for attempting to procure a passport after being arrested and indicted for insurance fraud. The same friends say that Denise's Fifth Avenue triplex penthouse apartment used to be cluttered with pictures of her with Lauersen. "But every single one of them are gone," the source told me. On the other hand, there are pictures of Denise with Bill Clinton "everywhere, still to this day."

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2001