"There is a significant probability that a man using the name of Norman Hsu is running a Ponzi scheme," Cassidy wrote to a California Democratic Party official on June 18 in an e-mail obtained by The Times. Describing the deal he understood Hsu was offering to investors, he wrote: "The math does not work!"
The party official passed Cassidy's concerns to Samantha Wolf, who rejected them.
On June 20, Cassidy sent an e-mail directly to Wolf.
"I am more than ever convinced that a man claiming to be a big fundraiser for Hillary Clinton is running a Ponzi scheme," he wrote. He said he feared that an associate "may lose her home" because of her participation in the scheme and cautioned Wolf that Hsu may be "using your good name in vane."
Cassidy said Wolf did not respond to the e-mail warning.
On Monday, Wolf declined to discuss Hsu or Cassidy's e-mails. She no longer works for the Clinton campaign, but did as recently as July. Before becoming a West Coast finance director, Wolf, a 2006 college graduate, was deputy Midwest/Northern Virginia finance director at Hillary Clinton for President.
The Hsu saga has evoked memories of scandals that plagued President Clinton's 1996 reelection drive, in which donors contributed large amounts to the campaign and the party under embarrassing circumstances.
Anthony Corrado, a campaign expert at Colby College, said that though the refunds announced by Clinton on Monday were "certainly significant," he doubted that the loss of $850,000 would "have a material effect" on the senator's campaign, which has raised more than $55 million so far. He predicted that Bill Clinton's upcoming fundraiser for his wife, aimed at expatriates in London, would replace the loss.
robin.fields@latimes.com
chuck.neubauer@latimes.com
dan.morain@latimes.com
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Fields and Neubauer reported from Washington and Morain from Sacramento. Times staff writer Tom Hamburger in Washington and researcher Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
