UD’s favorite radio show, Car Talk, relies on the research of Paul Murky, of Murky Research. UD thought about him this morning as she researched the murky tale of Benjamin Mendelsohn, high-handed, unqualified applicant for medical school at the University of Florida who got in after the deadline, without any standardized test scores, and with an undistinguished record at his prior school.

Now we’ve already seen on this blog PLENTY of paid and clouted admissions to American colleges and professional schools (the University of Illinois is the big story lately); we’ve taken note of a whole big book called The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates .  We’ve even put some ruling class names to this process: Andrew Giuliani, the Ralph Lauren kids, Jared Kushner, George Bush.

We’ve even… Well, to speak personally for a moment… UD dated one summer a guy who went to Yale but who was dumb. Had everything else going for him — handsome, genial, well-dressed — but he was dumb.

And UD – at that time a student at Northwestern University – wondered about that. She sat with him at Georgetown cafés and — like the Duchess of Windsor who, having given up getting meaningful conversation out of the Duke, sat at restaurants with him and recited the alphabet aloud, so that other people would think they were talking — tried this and that and then this other subject, and finally gave up. She was in the curious position of using a Yalie as a boytoy.

This guy, who came from Connecticut, did mention that his father had given millions of dollars to Yale, and to a senator (the senator was an old family friend) who had written the guy a letter of recommendation… But, you know, this was years before UD became University Diaries, so what did she know? She only, as I say, registered the cognitive dissonance involved in this guy, palpably unbright, having attended a university whose selectivity and quality she was under the impression burned supernovally …

But, again, it’s murky. Tracing the steps whereby someone unqualified buys and clouts their way into school is murky.  It’s rare that you can really prove it, since paper trails, if they exist at all, have probably been deleted… I mean, it’s about phone calls and chats at golf courses and shit…  But we know it goes on, because families fight about it.  Take Jared Kushner’s family.

Jared Kushner’s family is one of those salt of the earth adorable squabbling families, just like your family except with a criminal history and billions of dollars.  New York magazine recently recounted a typical squabble, between Kushner’s father and uncle.

In the spring of 2000, over Passover at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, the Kushner [brothers] tried to reconcile. But as they chatted in chaises longues, their dispute boiled over. Charlie, still angry over the Berkshire deal, told Murray they shouldn’t do business anymore.

“If we can’t be partners, we can’t be brothers,” Murray said.

Lee defended her husband [Murray], drawing Charlie’s rage. Charlie complained that they never appreciated all he had done for the Kushner name.

“You think your son got into Penn?” Charlie said, glowering at Lee. “I got him in.”

Murray had to restrain Lee from leaping out of his lap.

Never tell a Jewish mother her kid was clouted.

So, okay, that’s amusing and we’ll expect to see it on Seinfeld soon… Oh, Seinfeld’s over… But something like Seinfeld… But the larger issue isn’t really funny, and a lot of Americans get angry — like the taxpayers of Illinois — when the deal, the trick, the shtick, the way things are, is revealed.

So let’s go back to Mendelsohn, the soft, murky strains of Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn’s topical because the University of Florida medical school dean who admitted him (He “overruled a College of Medicine selection committee in admitting Benjamin Mendelsohn, the son of a high-profile Republican fundraiser.”) was fired, and then sued the university like crazy, and then did other crazy shit, and now there’s been a legal settlement and he’s agreed to go away and shut up. Did this guy admit Mendelsohn under pressure from UF’s president, who’d gotten a letter from the governor? Or did he overrule the admissions committee himself, for some other reason?

It’s murky. UD did some more murky research and…

PEE YEW.

She shouldn’t have.

You don’t want to stir the shit. UD knows that. Why did she do it?

Hollywood [Florida] ophthalmologist Alan Mendelsohn is one of Charlie Crist’s closest political allies, a leader on the governor’s transition team who helped raise Crist and other Republicans huge amounts of cash for their campaigns during the past decade. Mendelsohn may be the most politically influential physician in Florida. He has served as treasurer and chief fundraiser of the Florida Medical Association, held leadership roles with the Broward County Medical Association and has been been president of the Florida Society of Ophthamology, among other distinctions.

But the doctor was linked to more than just powerful politicians — Mendelsohn also served as a lobbyist and fundraising bag man for [Florida] fraud artist Joel Steinger, the convicted felon behind the billion-dollar Mutual Benefits Ponzi scheme, according to sources and court records.

… In an August 24, 2007 deposition, Mutual Benefits lobbyist Russ Klenet said Mendelsohn was “very helpful” to the fraudulent company.

“He raises a tremendous amount of money for primarily Republican candidates for office in Florida, and he was very helpful,” Klenet said under oath. “We raised a lot of money; Mutual Benefits raised a lot of money through Dr. Mendelsohn.”

Mendelsohn, according to sources, also helped plan and execute the legislative strategy for Steinger, who desperately wanted protection from regulators so he could keep the Ponzi scheme alive. Key to that goal was keeping the company under the jurisdiction of the Department of Insurance rather than under the more stringent state Department of Banking and Finance. A bill doing just that was passed in 2004, despite the objections of then-Florida Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher.

Sources say Steinger also used Mendelsohn to help gain sway with Charlie Crist when Crist served as attorney general before his election as governor in 2006.

… Steinger sometimes found creative ways to pay his powerful surrogates. In the case of Klenet and Ritter, he paid $117,000 to renovate their Parkland home (in addition to paying Klenet hundreds of thousands of dollars). Sources say he also did interesting favors for Ben-Veniste, who often partied with Steinger when he was in Miami. In the case of Mendelsohn, sources say Steinger paid for his son’s tuition at Harvard University.

When asked about that allegation in the deposition, Klenet denied any knowledge of it. Mendelsohn didn’t [respond to] a phone call left at his office for comment.

Mendelsohn has a long history of influence in Tallahassee. As a fundraiser and legislative director for several medical associations, he has been able to raise millions of dollars from physicians and turn that cash into crucial votes. In 2001, he was behind a controversial legislative vote to force patients to turn to ophthalmologists like himself rather than optometrists for post-op care. Dubbed the “Battle of the O’s,” then-Broward County Republican Chairman George LeMieux defended Mendelsohn, saying he wasn’t greedy, but rather “very passionate” about care.

LeMieux, of course, was Charlie Crist’s top political advisor and would go on to become his chief of staff in the governor’s office. Crist has been unapologetic about his friendship and support for the medical money man, whom he tapped to oversee health care policy for his transition team in 2006. More recently, Crist vouched for Mendelsohn’s son — and caught some controversy for it.

In 2007, Mendelsohn’s son Benjamin wanted to get into a special University of Florida Junior Honors Medical Program, which combines undergraduate study with a medical degree over seven years. The problem: Benjamin Mendelsohn didn’t get the backing of the medical selection committee that makes the recommendations for the program. He lacked the basic qualifications to get into the program, including a failure to take the Medical College Admissions Test and missing deadlines in the application process.

Not to worry. Crist wrote a letter on the young Mendelsohn’s behalf, urging the dean of UF’s College of Medicine, Bruce Kone, to accept him into the program. “I have known Benjamin and his family for several years and know that Benjamin’s affiliation with the University of Florida will enhance the reputation of both Benjamin and the Medical Program,” Crist wrote.

As if to show that money could buy not only the governor but also the legislature, Sen. President Ken Pruitt also wrote a letter for Mendelsohn. Kone followed Crist and Pruitt, broke with tradition, and allowed Benjamin Mendelsohn into the program. Incredibly, the dean claimed political influence played no role in his decision.

The saga was documented in the Gainesville Sun, which noted that the Mendelsohns — both father and son — personally contributed to Crist in 2006 and that the family’s political contributions, almost all of it to Republicans, totaled $33,257 in that year alone. But those personal contributions are small potatoes compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars he raised at his Hollywood home from doctors for Crist and the GOP.

It’s a stunning example of how Crist’s influence can be purchased — and how easily UF admissions can be manipulated by politicos. So how did UF respond to the allegations? By conducting an investigation the leak of information to the Sun rather than into the obvious corruption. It leaves a black eye on the Gator Nation.

The full extent of Mendelsohn’s role with con artist Steinger and the Mutual Benefits is yet to be determined, but it’s clear he used that same clout to further the Ponzi scheme…

The full extent has become clear, and Dr Mendelsohn-to-be’s father is now Best Friends Forever with the Justice Department, which has been chatting him up like mad about how he

… helped Steinger and his company, which hired a dozen lobbyists, to pass a law in 2004 to ensure that viatical sales would be regulated as an insurance product rather than as a security, which meant less scrutiny of the industry and disclosure to investors.

But shortly after the legislation passed, the SEC shut down Mutual Benefits and, the following year, the Legislature reversed itself.

Now Mendelsohn’s supporting role in the viatical legislative fight has come under the scrutiny of the Justice Department investigators who are examining Steinger’s corruption claims.

Over more than a decade, Mendelsohn, his family and political action committee, Ophthalmology PAC, raised more than $700,000 for state candidates and political causes, records show. The total amount of money Mendelsohn helped raise is even higher, considering he was a top fundraiser for powerful Florida Medical Association.

Amid the federal corruption probe, Mendelsohn announced he was giving up his prodigious fundraising activities for Republican lawmakers. Friends say he wants to spend more time with his family. Sources say he has been contacted by federal authorities about the investigation.

He should indeed spend as much time as he can with his family. Who knows where he’ll be next year.

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UD thanks her friend Barney (who has his own med school-related post up today) for the link that got this post started — the article about the dean’s legal settlement.