Questions raised over ex-city finance chief's relationship with banker, firm

[downtownguy]

Well, now, this adds an interesting wrinkle to things, doesn't it?

Close ties put Detroit pension deal brokers under scrutiny

City lawyers trying to terminate a $1.4 billion pension deal blamed for plunging Detroit into bankruptcy want to question the deal’s architect, a former Kwame Kilpatrick appointee, about his relationship with a banker whose firm profited from the deal.

The lawyers want to know why Kilpatrick’s finance chief, Sean Werdlow, resigned in November 2005 and joined SBS Financial Products Co., which according to a lawsuit filed by the city was one of the municipal investment banks that engineered the pension deal. The firm was created by an investment bank headed by Suzanne Shank, who recently bought a 6,000-square-foot, multimillion-dollar home with Werdlow.

A lawsuit, bankruptcy documents, divorce files and interviews shed light on the deal and two powerful people whose relationship has drawn attention on the sidelines of the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Full article here
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2sfh0sM4P