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'Boston Globe' First with Full Probe on Alito's 'Vanguard' Conflict

By E&P Staff Published: November 03, 2005 3:50 PM ET
NEW YORK For two days, media outlets have briefly reported that new U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., ruled in a 2002 case in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds. The Boston Globe today published the first in-depth look at the matter. Among other things, Globe reporters Sarah Schweitzer and Michael Kranish revealed that court records show that Alito later complained about an effort to remove him from the case -- despite an earlier promise to recuse himself from cases involving the company.It's a local story for the Globe, as the case involves a nearby Jamaica Plain woman still fighting to win back assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts, which had been frozen by Vanguard after a court judgment in favor of a former business partner of her husband.Her lawyer, John G. S. Flym, a retired Northeastern University law professor, said in an interview with the Globe that Alito's ''lack of integrity is so flagrant" in the case that he should be disqualified as a Supreme Court nominee.His cient, Shanee Maharaj, 50, discovered Alito's ownership of Vanguard shares in 2002 when she requested his financial disclosure forms after he ruled against her appeal. ''I just started seeing Vanguard after Vanguard, and I almost fell to the floor," she told the reporters at the home she shares with a friend. She lost her own home during the lengthy prolonged litigation. ''I just couldn't believe that it could be so blatant."The Globe reports:"In 1990, when Alito was seeking US Senate approval for his nomination to be a circuit judge, he said in written answers to a questionnaire that he would disqualify himself from ''any cases involving the Vanguard companies.'......