MAN IN KICKBACK CASE FACED FORECLOSURE

By Michael Horne

Doesn’t anybody do background checks anymore? If the folks at UGL Equis Corporation had done so before they chose Larry Lupton to run its Wisconsin operations, they would have quickly found that the man they hired was in the midst of foreclosure proceedings on his Brookfield home. This is not a good sign, especially for a person who is to head a real estate firm.

Larry Lupton’s hiring was greeted with great fanfare by Equis, which issued a press release announcing the momentous event on January 26^th 2007. The firm was practically giddy about hiring Lupton back after a stint at CBRE/Polachek. “His national transaction experience totals more than 200 transactions representing more than $400 million in transaction value,” the release trumpeted, adding, “bringing someone of Larry’s caliber and experience with corporate clients in will help better serve our Milwaukee clients, plus provide additional support for the State of Wisconsin account.” The release is no longer on the firm’s website, and Lupton is on leave while he faces charges filed yesterday by the U. S. Department of Justice. He is charged with soliciting a $75,000 kickback from a potential purchaser of the state Department of Administration Building in Madison. However, by the time he was hired, the foreclosure case had already been two months along.

Equis, based in Chicago, was founded by Michael Silver who, with his wife, Mary, was an active contributor to the campaign of Governor Jim Doyle, raising at least $27,250 for him. Silver sold Equis to UGL last year. It had had the contract to manage certain real estate assets for the state since April 2004. The contract was valued at $2.9 million, plus commissions.

With the contract cancelled yesterday by department secretary Michael Morgan, it is almost certain that the state budget will be $30 million out of whack by the end of next month, when the building was expected to have been sold.