A Wealthy Opportunist Is Playing Michigan Progressives For Fools
<Written, directed and narrated by a Detroiter named Jack King, “The Blue Suitcase” is a more-than-two-hour-long homage to Thanedar, depicting his rise from poverty in India as the quintessential immigrant success story. Given the source material, you can forgive King for leaving out some of the revelations that have dogged Thanedar during his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination: running a chemical testing company that allowed amphetamines and viagra into over-the-counter dietary supplements; stranding dogs and monkeys in a shuttered lab; donating to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); cozying up to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and even considering a run for governor as a Republican.
But Thanedar is not the wholesome businessman-turned-public-servant he wants Michiganders to think he is. His entrepreneurial undertakings, which made him wealthy enough to elicit a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”-style local news segment years ago about one of his former homes, have involved the same corporate malfeasance he claims he would fight as governor.
That period of financial trouble sowed the seeds of Thanedar’s most notorious scandal. In 2010, Bank of America repossessed Chemir’s AniClin Preclinical Services, a New Jersey-based facility, when Thanedar was unable to meet his obligations to the mega-bank.
The lab tested some of its chemicals on over 100 beagles and monkeys. And the closure was so sudden that, as HuffPost reported in April, no contingency plan existed to take care of the animals. The lab’s workers had to climb the facility’s locked fences to feed and care for the animals, according to a USA Today account at the time.
Animal shelters that caught wind of the case tried to adopt the animals. Weeks later, they succeeded ― despite Thanedar’s best efforts to thwart them. In an attempt to recoup as much money from the bankruptcy as possible, he pushed for the animals’ sale to other testing facilities.
Regrouping after the bankruptcy, Thanedar moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he started a second chemical testing company, Avomeen. That company experienced similarly rapid growth. It has also faced charges of negligence.>
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/shri-thanedar-democrat-egomaniac-michigan-governor_us_5b609166e4b0b15aba9d308c
