Nick Hultgren Continues to Make Wisconsin Waves

He may live in and have been indicted in Illinois, but former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson aide Nick Hurtgen is still making news in Wisconsin.

Although a watchdog group called The Media Access Project didn’t want the indicted Hurtgen to own part of a radio station chain in South Dakota, it apparently filed no objection to “Bob Romanik('s), the ex-Washington Park police chief who owned two strip clubs and served time in prison,” starting a 1000 watt radio station to cover the Metro East area.

But, maybe The Media Access Group didn’t know the details of this deal.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the station was purchased

from the Rev. Larry Rice, president of the nonprofit New Life Evangelistic Center in St. Louis, for $450,000.

But, back to Hurtgen.

Hurtgen, head of the Chicago office of Bear Stearn before resigning, was indicted for his role in a hospital approval scandal.

The pay-to-play scheme became public when the Chicago Sun-Times got a copy of a whistle-blower suit filed by officials of Naperville’s Edward Hospital.

The scandal expanded to include the approval of Wisconsin’s Mercy Health Systems’ hospital bid in Crystal Lake.

The suit said those wishing to build new hospitals were allegedly told they could receive approval from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board if they used Bear Stearns for financing and Kiferbaum Construction as their general contractor.

Former super-lobbyist and George Ryan campaign strategist Don Udstuen introduced former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson aide Nicholas Hurtgen to Naperville’s Edward Hospital officials. Hurtgen was then investment house Bear Stearn’s Chicago head.

Jacob Kiferbaum has already pled guilty and Stuart Levine has been cooperating with federal authorities for quite a while.

Before the hospital scandal, when Wisconsin Energy was seeking an Illinois lobbyist in 1999, Nick Hurtgen asked Crystal Lake resident Don Udstuen’s advice. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says that Udstuen conferred with Ryan and Ryan suggested Ron Swanson, who was hired.

You get the picture.

At any rate, more recently, he was an investor in a group, including Tommy Thompson, that was trying to purchase 6 South Dakota radio stations.

When former State Rep. Penny Pullen and I met with South Dakota State Representative Roger Hunt, we learned that radio plays a much larger role in state politics than it does in Illinois. One probably would be safe in assuming that the pending purchase is not only a business deal, but also has a political side.

The application for license transfers was object to because of Hurtgen’s 7 felony indictments. Hurtgen’s share of the purchase was 12.5%.

Hurtgen is now out and the deal is expected to go through.

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