Des Moines metro developer, charity founder is claimed to owe $70 million, Watchdog finds​

Lee Rood
Des Moines Register

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Daniel Pettit painted himself as a bold and adventurous developer, who appeared to have not only a Midas touch but a heart of gold.
A one-time mayoral candidate in Waukee, Pettit announced some of that city’s most ambitious projects before the pandemic hit – from a massive 40-acre, $101 million entertainment district called “The Quarter” to an 88,000-square-foot event and office space nearby.
In 2021, Pettit convinced West Des Moines leaders and lenders to back two major commercial-residential projects, The Village at Sugar Creek and Banks Landing, on Booneville Road and South 88th St., north of Des Moines University’s new campus.


Along with his former wife, Rachael, the Drake University graduate founded a faith-based nonprofit called Trailhead International Builders, once enlisting former President George W. Bush to speak at Hy-Vee Hall to help raise money. Pettit said the organization built churches in some of the world's most impoverished countries, from Guatemala to Cuba, an effort that led him to be recognized as one of 10 Outstanding Young Americans by the Jaycees, now known as JCI USA.

But the 43-year-old also had an appetite for lavish things, buying a mansion worth at least $2.4 million with a nine-hole golf course and fishing pond in Johnston, a $1 million painting from pop artist Rob Prior in Miami, and a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, a rare sports car, from Texas.
And as 2023 draws to a close, Pettit finds himself drowning in financial trouble, hounded by lenders and unhappy former investors and wanted by the law after being held in contempt of court in three civil court cases. On Nov. 30, a Polk County judge sentenced Pettit to six months behind bars for repeatedly ignoring court orders or failing to respond to subpoenas – but he failed to show up Friday morning to voluntarily begin his jail sentence for contempt, court documents show.

Among the willful conduct by Pettit this year that Judge Jeanie Vaudt noted in the sentencing: Pettit liquidated accounts this spring and summer, tried to write a check for a $275,000 Michael Jordan jersey, and transferred around $100,000 from a personal account to a joint account with a woman in Nevada, where he'd headed up a failed cannabis cultivation business. In August, Pettit also applied for life insurance with a $10 million death benefit to be awarded to his own revocable trust, the judge found.
"To put it plainly, it appears that defendent Daniel E. Pettit has consistently not been forthcoming to plaintiffs about his true financial condition and the kinds of results he could deliver to his investors," Vaudt's ruling said. "Many individuals and companies – big, medium and small – potentially have been economically damaged by (his) empty promises and lack of candor as to his true financial position... It is reasonable to assume that some of the money funding that lavish lifestyle came from defendant Daniel E. Pettit's investors."
In September, Pettit claimed in a financial statement submitted to the court to have cash assets of $2 million and total assets of $56 million. He listed his liabilities at $68,000, court documents show.
But documents reviewed by Watchdog in more than two dozen cases filed in Iowa courts show banks have foreclosed on properties he or his corporations purchased. Contractors from consulting to construction have filed mechanic's liens on his property. Investors from Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New York and Utah have obtained court judgments worth millions. Several former business partners have accused him of fraud while Pettit defaulted on tens of millions he borrowed.

The Watchdog review revealed judgments and debts of nearly $70 million claimed against Pettit and limited liability corporations in which he is involved. Mechanic's liens taken out against his properties in West Des Moines by others owed money – some for a few thousand, others for almost $800,000 – add to that total.

Police question whether Daniel Pettit was involved in staging a holdup in his home​

Pettit, who did not respond to an email and phone call seeking an interview, has no criminal record in Iowa.
But as his troubles mount, Pettit also finds himself at the center of a law enforcement investigation in Johnston, court documents show. Search warrant documents filed in Polk County District Court show Johnston police seized Pettit’s cellphone in late September to conduct a data search after he reported an armed robbery at his home on Sept. 10.
A search warrant application made after the robbery shows he reported the theft of three handguns, two Rolexes worth almost $100,000, about $25,000 worth of Cartier jewelry and a Bentley that he was driving but did not belong to him.
A preliminary search of Pettit's phone after the robbery showed he “promised and/or made payments” for sex and sexually explicit photographs, police allege. The officer involved in the investigation said he had probable cause to believe further evidence of prostitution would be found in the phone, according to search warrant documents filed in Polk County.

A report on the case by Johnston police obtained by Watchdog alleges that Pettit had communication with the robbery suspect and that police sought access to communications on his cell phone to determine "whether Daniel had involvement in the planning and/or staging the incident."
As he faces a barrage of legal trouble, Pettit has already placed the home he owned with his ex-wife on 26 acres in Johnston into a revocable trust under his name alone.
Rachael Pettit, the mother of his two minor children who divorced him earlier this year, has sought to distance herself from him legally and financially, court documents show. Reached Friday, she said she could not comment on the advice of her attorney.
Before Pettit's sentencing, Steven Katz, the head of a brokerage and advisory firm in New Jersey who recruited investors for Pettit and represented some plaintiffs in court cases, said Pettit belongs behind bars.
“Defendant Pettit needs to be confronted with the magnitude of these proceedings and the severity of his failures to comply with the legal process,” Katz said in the affidavit.
Katz told Watchdog Nov. 30 he would not comment on any of the legal action against Pettit, but said he was still in contact with Pettit and that Pettit owed him a lot of money.

David Bruck, a New Jersey attorney representing Sari Kramer, a psychologist who invested more than $500,000 through Katz with Pettit, said she is one of many people damaged by Pettit's failure to pay on loans. “As far as I can see, it was all a fraud,” Bruck said.

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Good. Eff this Republican nonsense.

….who sold/gave their tickets to Nebraska fans. There was WAY too much red in Kinnick last night. There were a large number in the east stands, and many in my area of the NW corner. And they were loud.

Disgraceful.

Representative Jerrold Nadler plans to step down as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee next term, succumbing to calls for generational change as his party prepares to confront a second Trump administration.
Mr. Nadler, the 77-year-old dean of New York’s congressional delegation, had been facing a direct challenge from a close ally, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Mr. Raskin, 61, was said to have secured the votes necessary to defeat him.
The transition would represent a significant departure for House Democrats, who have traditionally awarded coveted committee leadership jobs based primarily on seniority. After November’s losses, though, many in the party have argued that President-elect Donald J. Trump’s return to power would require a younger, more dynamic crop of leaders.
Furious over being challenged, Mr. Nadler had initially fought to hold the position he has held since 2017. But on Wednesday, he conceded that he did not have a path to victory and endorsed Mr. Raskin to replace him in a letter to colleagues.
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“As our country faces the return of Donald Trump, and the renewed threats to our democracy and our way of life that he represents, I am very confident that Jamie would ably lead the Judiciary Committee as we confront this growing danger,” Mr. Nadler wrote.
“Therefore,” he continued, “I have decided not to run for ranking member of the Judiciary Committee in the 119th Congress.”

Read Representative Jerrold Nadler’s Letter​

Mr. Nadler told his Democratic colleagues that he plans to step down as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee next term.
Read Document 2 pages
Mr. Nadler called Mr. Raskin and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, to inform them of his decision, according to an aide.
He follows Representative Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona, 76, who announced this week that he would step down as the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee as he faced a challenge from a younger colleague, Representative Jared Huffman of California, 60. Two Democrats are challenging Representative David Scott, Democrat of Georgia, 79, to the senior spot on the Agriculture Committee.
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In clearing the way at Judiciary, Mr. Nadler also effectively opened up the top Democratic slot on the Oversight Committee, which Mr. Raskin now occupies. Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, 74, has already formally entered the race, but he may soon face a challenge from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who at 35 is less than half his age.
People close to Mr. Nadler said had been deeply hurt by the push to replace him. A 17-term lawmaker from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Mr. Nadler has long been a leading liberal voice in the House on issues including gay rights and surveillance powers. He won the top Democratic seat on the Judiciary Committee in 2017, after decades of toiling, and played a role in two impeachments of Mr. Trump in 2019 and 2021.
But Mr. Nadler had never been known as a particularly sharp strategist, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi sidelined him from key parts of the impeachment fight. Many of his colleagues had begun quietly fretting that Mr. Nadler was not up to the task this time. He often reads from written remarks during committee meetings and has been known to fall asleep in meetings.
With a broad jurisdiction, the Judiciary Committee is likely to be at the center of some of Washington’s largest fights next year, including Mr. Trump’s vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, overhaul the Justice Department and any attempt by Republicans to curtail abortion rights.
Mr. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, was himself a close ally of Mr. Nadler in the past and is widely beloved among House Democrats. First elected in 2016, he rapidly made his name as a silver-tongued antagonist to Mr. Trump, serving as the lead impeachment prosecutor against Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He also served on the special House committee set up to investigate the attack.

lol

Former Nebraska football coach Scott Frost is expected to join the Los Angeles Rams' staff as a senior analyst, according to an ESPN report.

Frost had been out of coaching since he was fired two years ago by NU. Frost received a nearly $16 million payout upon his firing after the Sept. 10, 2022, loss to Georgia Southern. He and his family later relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona.

In an interview with CBS Sports earlier this year, Frost said he wanted to return to coaching.
"I'm dying to get back in," Frost said.

He joins one of the top current franchises in the NFL. Under coach Sean McVay, Los Angeles has averaged 10 wins during the past seven seasons and played in two Super Bowls, winning one in 2022 over the Bengals.

Show that you can bet $1.00 on Kamala, and still walk away with $0.00.

We can only hope they will overreach:

Red-state leaders emboldened by Donald Trump’s presidential victory are not waiting for him to take office to advance far more conservative agendas at home.
Idaho lawmakers want to allow school staff to carry concealed firearms without prior approval and parents to sue districts in library and curriculum disputes. Lawmakers in Oklahoma plan to further restrict abortion by limiting the emergency exceptions and to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, while their counterparts in Arkansas are moving to create the felony offense of “vaccine harm,” which could make pharmaceutical companies or their executive officers potentially criminally liable.


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But few states have bigger, more aggressive plans than Texas. Ahead of their biennial session, which begins Jan. 14, the Republican legislators who control both House and Senate have proposed a multitude of measures that would push the state further right.


Migrants are a particular focus, with bills to create a “Texas border protection unit” and to repeal instate tuition for undocumented students, requiring colleges to notify law enforcement if they learn a student is undocumented. They also would require state police to DNA-test migrants taken into custody, allow troopers to return undocumented immigrants to Mexico if they are seen entering Texas illegally, fingerprint and track migrant children in a database and bar immigrants who are in the country illegally from accessing public legal services.
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“Red state legislatures and governors are chomping at the bit,” said Craig DeRoche, a former Michigan House speaker who is now president of the influential conservative Family Policy Alliance. The group has chapters in 40 states where, he said, conservatives are sending a message to likely members of the incoming Trump administration on a variety of issues: “Don’t fix it there. Send it back to us so we can fix it here.”
“There’s going to be an extraordinary accountability. And red state governors and legislatures are going to lead on that,” DeRoche said.


Of 27 states with Republican governors, 23 are backed by GOP legislative majorities, all of which will reconvene in the New Year. Republicans flipped Capitols in Michigan and Minnesota this election, breaking Democrats’ trifecta control, and they hold a supermajority in Kansas that will allow them to override any veto by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat.


“The alignment of a Trump-Vance administration and the beginning of legislative sessions is a looming perfect storm of conservative policies in red states,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a legal group that has marshaled more than 800 lawyers to counter an anticipated onslaught of conservative legal battles on multiple fronts, from reproductive health to labor rights, free speech and public education.
Still, it’s not clear where or how or how fast Trump will try to capitalize on his state allies once he’s back in the White House. “We don’t know if they will target communities in red states quicker than in blue states,” Perryman said. What she and others do know: that those allies hope to find much success given the momentum of Trump’s win, not just with new proposals but with some that previously fell short.
Simone Leiro, spokeswoman for the Democratic-aligned States Project, sees GOP lawmakers already pursuing two types of legislation: those that fan the culture wars and those that give more power to corporations. “It feels like they can get away with a lot more without scrutiny,” she said Wednesday.


Nowhere is GOP activism more visible than in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott hosted Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan last month at a state-run base established just minutes from where many migrants cross the Rio Grande. Homan called Operation Lone Star, Texas’s $11 billion border enforcement program, a “model” for national immigration enforcement.
Since the Nov. 5 election, Texas has added more barbed wire along the border and buoy barriers in the river. A state police unit patrols daily on horseback. Abbott has asked the legislature for another $2.8 billion for the program in 2025.
“We’re going to be doing more and faster than anything that’s ever been done to regain control of our border, restore order in our communities, and also identify, locate and deport criminals in the United States of America who have come across the border,” he said during Homan’s visit to Eagle Pass.

According to the commission’s report, Fort Benning will be named Fort Moore; Fort Polk will be renamed Fort Johnson; Fort Bragg will become Fort Liberty; Fort Gordon will become Fort Eisenhower; Fort Hood will become Fort Cavazos; Fort Lee will become Fort Gregg-Adams; Fort Pickett will become Fort Barfoot; Fort Rucker will be renamed to Fort Novosel.

...

The federally mandated Naming Committee estimated the undertaking to cost as much as $62.5 million, according to Stars and Stripes.

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Login to view embedded media And she runs a news organization? wTF

You lost...we won...cry harder!! Keep crying and obstructing right up to the midterms so you can get some more of the same, Loser 0boma! >

...how do you excuse away the violent daily moves of 6-7%. Is that how a reserve currency acts?