The news that Carol Moseley Braun borrowed $250,000 from an Oak Brook businessman found liable of harassment is embarrassing for her mayoral campaign. But it’s not embarrassing because of who she borrowed the money from. It’s embarrassing because she hasn’t yet paid the loan back.
Moseley Braun’s benefactor, WJYS-Channel 62 owner Joseph Stroud, lent her the money so she could start her new business, Ambassador Organics, an importer of coffee, tea and spices. As the Sun-Times reports, Stroud lost a $3.1 million civil case against an employee who claimed he harassed her after she defended a white woman Stroud had fired. The woman testified that Stroud “called her an ‘ignorant n-----’ and told her she shouldn’t ‘side with’ the other woman because ‘white people’ have ‘done nothing for her.’”
But that’s not the embarrassing part of the story, at least not for Moseley Braun. Here’s the embarrassing part:
Despite Braun’s statement distancing herself from Stroud, she’s still on the hook to him for the $250,000 loan, which is secured through one of four mortgages on her five-bedroom, 4.5-bath house in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago. She appears to have fallen behind the original repayment schedule on that and another loan, the second from First Midwest Bank for $97,025, records on file at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office show.
That’s just another episode in Moseley Braun’s endless financial drama. The former senator is still $262,000 in debt from her 2004 presidential campaign. She tried to shut down the account this year, because her campaign is “without assets,” but the Federal Election Commission won’t let her off the hook until all the debts are paid off. Moseley Braun is still refusing to pay her former campaign manager $13,000, on the grounds that the woman wouldn’t spend enough time in Chicago.
Moseley Braun is also trying to sell her house for $1.9 million, saying she doesn’t the space. Maybe she needs the money?
