By Steve Rhodes
“Jeffrey Zaslow – a former Chicago Sun-Times columnist who went on to sell millions of books with themes of compassion, inspiration and empathy – was killed Friday in a car crash in northern Michigan,” the Sun-Times reported over the weekend.
“Mr. Zaslow teamed up with some of the country’s most inspirational people to help tell their stories, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and Randy Pausch, the subject of Zaslow’s huge hit The Last Lecture, which has been translated into 48 languages and sold more than five million copies in English.
“He was a columnist at the Wall Street Journal at the time of his death. He was 53.”
Zaslow famously – and accidentally – won a contest to replace Ann Landers, resulting in the Sun-Times’s “All That Zazz” feature.
“He brought together a group of readers called the Regular Joes who would chime in with advice. He held an annual singles party that drew national attention – and led to many marriages,” the paper recalled.
“Mr. Zaslow launched school supply drives in his column. He also raised untold sums for the Sun-Times charity.”
Ah, yes, the charity. Here’s what the Sun-Times left out of its report.
* On November 26, 1999, Michael Miner reported for the Reader that [T]he Sun-Times’s Jeff Zaslow was still unaware two months later that more than 70 grand had disappeared from the proceeds of this year’s Zazz Bash.
“The news affairs office of the police department says the money was in one of four bags taken to the Sun-Times after the fund-raiser, which was held in four River North clubs on Friday night, September 17. The following Monday, September 20, the bags were delivered by a United Armored Services truck to the Bank One in the Loop.
“But on September 30 the director of security for the Sun-Times notified police that $72,500 in cash had disappeared. Exactly when and by whom the loss was discovered remains unclear. Large bundles of bills brought to a bank for deposit are sometimes posted to the customer’s account before the money is actually counted. The missing funds represent about half the total revenue of the Zazz Bash and almost all the profit, which was to benefit the Sun-Times Charity Trust.
“Patti Dudek, who manages the trust, says she got a check and no one’s asking for the money back. The trust received the check for a little more than $77,000 on September 24 – presumably before the Sun-Times realized that the money to cover it wasn’t on hand. Apparently the check was made good.
“As for what happened to the missing money, Dudek wouldn’t comment. Neither would officials of Bank One or United Armored Services, or Mike Weaver, director of security at the Sun-Times, or corporate attorney Linda Loye, who wouldn’t acknowledge that any money had ever disappeared, even though police say it hasn’t been found yet.
“There’s been no coverage in the Sun-Times.”
* On April 6, 2001, Miner wrote that “The Sun-Times has decided not to renew the contract of Jeff Zaslow, who will soon be leaving the paper after 14 years as an advice columnist, matchmaker, and fund-raiser. The reason being given is financial: Zaslow was a high-maintenance employee who required a full-time assistant.
“His bashes netted hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, but those revenues were earmarked for the Sun-Times Charity Trust rather than the newspaper’s bottom line.
“According to figures from past Zaslow columns, his ‘Letters to Santa’ program last year brought in $1.2 million in gifts from Sun-Times readers and $119,000 in cash toward the purchase of 3,500 coats–all of this benefiting 46,000 kids. Last August’s ‘Tools for Schools’ drive distributed school supplies to 5,500 schoolchildren.”
* On March 29, 2007, I wrote this in the Beachwood:
dug these excerpts about the Sun-Times Charity Trust out of the Breeden Report – a devastating portrait of what investigators called a ”corporate kleptocracy.”
–
“The Trust’s Board of Directors meets twice a year to consider grant requests. Grants are awarded only if they meet strict requirements. For example, the Trust will not award grants to organizations aimed at furthering religious doctrines, for scholarships, medical research, benefit dinners, advertisements, or tables at fundraising events. The Trust raises money by hosting large Chicago-area fundraisers.
–
“Most donations funded by the Chicago Sun-Times are made by the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust, the mission of which is to provide “financial support to arts, cultural and social service programs in the Chicago metropolitan area.” In accordance with the Trust’s grant application guidelines, grants are typically small, ranging between $1,000 and $5,000.307
–
“Donations from this Charity Trust, however, were also vetted by the Radlers. Rona Radler, Radler’s wife, was Chairman of the Trust’s Board of Directors, whose members have also included the following Hollinger employees who reported directly to Radler: Helen McCarthy, Loye, Kipnis, and Radler’s Chicago Sun-Times assistant Patti Dudek, who also serves as President of the Trust. Ms. Radler received approximately $126,000 in director’s fees from 1998 through 2003 for her service on the Trust’s Board. Radler also appears to have directed donations from the Trust’s budget. In an October 3, 2000 memo, Kipnis directed Dudek: ‘[p]er David Radler’s instruction, please have a check in the amount of $25,000 drawn from the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust made payable to “Project Excellence” in commemoration of Carl Rowan.’
–
“At least on a few occasions, Radler appears to have caused the Chicago Sun-Times to make donations outside the confines of the Trust and its guidelines. Disbursement information from the Chicago Sun-Times shows donations in 2001 for $35,000 and in 2002 for $25,000 to Haifa University, a college in Israel to which Hollinger’s New York office and the Jerusalem Post Charitable Fund each also donated $25,000 in 2002. Haifa University bestowed an honorary degree on Radler in May 2002.
According to Tom Rose, former publisher of the Jerusalem Post, the Post operates three large charitable funds and a not-for-profit organization in the United States. The three charitable funds were created more than 70 years ago and are independently chartered. They operate under local laws and filing requirements, and make contributions consistent with the Jerusalem Post’s mission or contributors’ wishes, or to longstanding recipients.
–
“A June 19, 1997 memo from Radler responding to a request that the Sun-Times donate to the United Jewish Appeal states that the Jerusalem Post Charity Funds ‘raise and distribute over $500,000 US per year.’
–
“According to Rose, Radler regularly recommended charity recipients. As mentioned previously, a section of a trauma recovery unit in the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem named after the Radlers was, according to Rose, at least partially funded by the Jerusalem Post Charitable Fund. In addition, as also discussed above, the Jerusalem Post Charitable Fund paid approximately $25,000 of Radler’s pledge to support a business program scholarship for graduate students at Haifa University.
“Rose sent a memo to Radler in May 2001 expressing concern about donations to Haifa University from the Jerusalem Post Charitable Fund:
‘Your suggestion that we pay for the table at the Haifa U. dinner in your honor with monies from the funds might not be such a good idea. I have been advised that authorities are getting more serious about insuring [sic] that non-profit payment guidelines are followed.
‘The problem, theoretically at least, is that the funds must be spent in Israel and this organization is not recognized in Israel.’
“Rose reiterated this concern in a 2002 e-mail:
‘Avi has arranged to give Yael from Haifa University $50,000 later this week. The two checks from the CST funds arrived in the package you sent last week. And at your instruction we will pay the balance from our own charitable funds; roughly $25,000.
‘Are you sure that you are OK with this? As I have indicated this makes me nervous. While I completely agree that you can argue you subsidize Israel to the tune of funding Post losses each year, I think that using funds from donors to our charitable funds sets us up for all kinds of problems.’
“The Special Committee has found no document reflecting that Radler ever responded to these concerns.”
* Following that post, Zaslow sent me an e-mail: “Nice piece today. Re: Sun-Times Charity Trust. I do have memories, etc.”
In a phone conversation, Zaslow then recalled – in addition to noting that editor-in-chief Michael Cooke yawned while firing him – several odd and mysterious doings between his charity fundraising and the paper’s trust. I was never able to advance the reporting and Zaslow wasn’t able to find a file in his basement he said was pertinent, but the Breeden Report’s findings provide a sufficient picture of how Zaslow’s charitable work was treated.
* For his role in running Hollinger International, “Radler was eventually charged with five counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud. On September 20, 2005, Radler pleaded guilty in a Chicago court to one count of mail fraud in relation to the ‘non-compete’ payments,” according to Wikipedia.
“On March 18, 2007, it was reported that Mr. Radler had signed a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that will see him pay a penalty of almost US$29 million and prevent him from acting as an officer or director of any public company in the United States. The next day, it was announced that Mr. Radler has settled with the Sun-Times Media Group, agreeing to pay them $64.1 million. The news of the SEC settlement sparked protest from the defense at the Conrad Black trial; the defense claimed that such news would negatively influence the jury.
“Radler started serving his 29-month sentence for fraud on February 25, 2008 by reporting to a Pennsylvania prison. He was turned over to Canadian authorities on September 18, 2008. It is believed that he was being held in a penal facility in British Columbia, although this cannot be confirmed.
“On Dec. 15, 2008, David Radler was granted a full parole and released from the Canadian penal facility in which he was being held. He served only 10 months of a 29-month sentence. He was released on the grounds that he was unlikely to ‘commit an offence involving violence’ before his sentence expired. The board said it was limited to considering only the matter of physical violence and could not consider the financial devastation caused by his crimes or the many victims of these crimes left in its wake.
“Mr. Radler is now back at work in his office in Vancouver running his business, the Alberta Newspaper Group.”
* Michael Cooke is currently the editor of the Toronto Star. He was brought there by his old buddy John Cruickshank, who is the publisher there. Both were longtime loyal Hollinger employees.
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on February 13, 2012