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they were saying, “You know, we can put together this group for you and we'll open a store for you and we'll really organize for you, and we have figured out our budget, and our budget comes”, says Henry Ramos, “to $25,000.” Now, even if I had money, I wouldn't give them $25,000. I've never given a group anything. I mean there are some expenses you have to pay for. If you open up a storefront, that's okay -- you pay the rent; that's part of a campaign operation. But this is obviously a ripoff. I mean you'd give them $25,000 and $24,990 would go out in the form of stipends to the people who were in that room in my judgment. So I said, “Well, we'll think about that,” but it was clear that I was not going to do it, and suddenly Ramos says, “This cat doesn't have any money,” and we didn't and he knew it.

I mention Henry Ramos because Henry Ramos subsequently was either charged with a crime of stealing or the allegations were there -- I don't know -- but he left town. He was very much involved in the school board elections on the Lower East Side. I don't really know what the background was, but I know he left town under a cloud. It had nothing to do with my campaign; it came out of the school board thing.

I also ought to tell you that in the school board situation you have Fuentes, a Puerto-Rican superintendent (I don't even know what his technical title is) in charge of district 1. He's subsequently been removed, subsequent to this story that I'm going