Catastrophe - Dick Morris [79]
But not Chris Dodd. He wanted it and was determined to make it work. So what did he do?
He found yet another friend to pay for it—and to give him exclusive use of the property. Dodd has admitted that he couldn’t afford to buy the place on his own: “It would have been tight” to purchase it solo, he says.299 So who to turn to?
By 1994, Downe could no longer help: his felony convictions had made him radioactive. Even if he had had the financial resources to help out, Dodd couldn’t afford to share another deed with a convicted felon. So what could he do? Pay for the property himself? No way.
But he lucked out again. This time, an acquaintance agreed to pay for two-thirds of the property, leaving him responsible for only one-third.
And guess who that acquaintance was? An old college friend of Downe.
According to Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, William “Bucky” Kessinger was a college friend of Downe and his partner in a Missouri real estate firm. Indeed, it was Downe who introduced Kessinger to Dodd.300 Talk about six degrees of separation! And there’s more: when the property was sold to Dodd and Kessinger, Downe was right there with them to witness the transaction and he actually signed the deed.301 Isn’t that what friends are for?
But what was Downe really doing there? Was he involved in the purchase of the property? Did he own part of it? Wait a minute. Was Kessinger actually a stand-in for Downe? Don’t start thinking that Kessinger was just a straw man standing in for Downe. Dodd has stated categorically that he wasn’t. So apparently that’s that.
According to Dodd, Kessinger thought that property in Ireland was a good investment. Unfortunately for Kessinger, he was apparently unaware of the rules of engagement when buying real estate with Dodd. It’s Dodd who makes the money; it’s the partner who spends it. So the professional real estate maven seems to have been the only landowner in Ireland who lost out on the incredible Irish property boom of the last decade—the largest increase in property values in the history of Ireland. Because when Dodd eventually bought him out, the price did not in any way reflect the meteoric rise in Irish property prices.
The original cost of the property was $160,000. But the new partners didn’t split the selling price evenly. Instead, Dodd bought only a third of the property and Kessinger two-thirds. Dodd claims to have paid $12,000 for his investment. But wouldn’t it have made more sense for them to buy the property in equal shares? Dodd told the Hartford Courant that he can’t remember why they did it this way. Really, who can remember every detail? Is it that important that Dodd only had to pay only $12,000 to get such a spectacular property? What’s the big deal?302
Hey, wait a minute, you may be thinking. Just why did Dodd and Kessinger divide that property in thirds? Wouldn’t that make more sense if there were three investors, not two? Perish the thought that Downe was in for the other third. Just because Downe had a history of chipping in on Dodd’s homes doesn’t mean he did so in Ireland. And just because he was there at the closing doesn’t mean he was an investor. And just because it was his partner who bought the property with Dodd doesn’t make him a partner, too. And just because another business associate of Downe’s tried to influence the local zoning board to approve renovations to the property doesn’t mean anything, does it? Surely it’s all just a coincidence. Dodd himself says that Downe had no ownership interest in the property; he merely visited from time to time.
In describing how he first saw the property, Dodd has made it seem as if he somehow just landed there in the late eighties, but as Kevin Rennie reports, Downe has been known in the Roundstone-Innishnee area for some time; in fact, it may have been he who introduced Dodd to it.:
Someone might also have noticed that of all the affluent seaside towns in all the world, it’s the one where Dodd has a home that Downe and current wife, Mary,