A Con Man For Congress?

Congress is drawing legendary bad approval numbers from a weary public, and a special election in Oregon isn't making voters much better about the dismal state of Congress. Congressman David Wu had to resign his office in disgrace after months of very weird personal conduct including some serious allegations of improper sexual conduct after he was accused of making unwanted sexual advances on the teenage daughter of an important campaign donor. That's one heck of a way to repay a favor, huh? Wu had previously been accused of a sexual assault on a former girlfriend while he attended Stanford, but survived politically when this old story resurfaced in 2004 three weeks before the election. Voters had hoped the problems with Wu were in the past. Apparently they certainly weren't.

In the last election Wu defeated Tualatin businessman Rob Cornilles by a handy margin. This year, Cornilles hopes to take Wu's old seat by selling himself as a successful businessman who has supposedly created 500 jobs according to his campaign claims. In his campaign ads, Cornilles is photographed in large warehouse with busy activity. It's all set to make the false impression that this big and busy company somehow is the big 500 employee company that Cornilles is bragging about in his campaign ads. To hear Cornilles describe himself, you'd expect him to be the next Bill Gates. Unfortunately all of this appears to be a complete myth. Cornilles is hardly the success that he claims to be.

It appears according to state tax records that Cornilles has just 6 employees for his Game Face, a sports ticket telemarketing business. And Cornilles no longer even even has this business registered with the state of Oregon either. Voters are probably scratching their heads how some telemarketing business that lists just 6 employees is somehow represented as a 500 employee company in Cornilles ads. Even worse, it appears that Game Face no longer even has a business office, and the six employees of Game Face largely work from their homes as telemarketers. The big company featured in the ads that Cornilles runs apparently isn't Game Face, but some other business. Nothing is as Cornilles claims.

Even worse for Cornilles is that he run some sort of telemarketing training school course for a while charging persons around $1400 to be able to take telemarketing jobs. That telemarketing training school course is now closed down. But, some former employees of Cornilles filed labor complaints claiming that they weren't paid any wages for 11 weeks working for him as a telemarketer, and further had to pay about $1400 for his telemarketing training course.

Cornilles also has had some back tax problems as well, owing the IRS around $83,000 in unpaid taxes. He claims that this was the result of some problems with a past bookkeeper, yet all of these problems only seem to point to someone nearly as questionable as David Wu, who he hopes to replace.

Cornilles talks a good game. But, the reality is that he constructs some mythical world for his Game Face business. He claims to be some huge job creator, yet former "employees" file complaints with the state for unpaid work as telemarketer of all things. And Cornilles is hardly any self made man, as much of his claimed wealth is actually all money that belongs to his wife. He's a former small time actor, who know how to sell himself. But, it appears that nothing is what it seems with him.

Meanwhile , who wants to pay $1400 to learn to be a telemarketer? Who wants to buy some ocean front property in Arizona?