The host of a now infamous fundraiser at which Mitt Romney told donors that he thinks half of Americans depend on the government has a scandalous past.
Before hosting a May fundraiser for the Republican presidential candidate at his Florida home, Marc Leder, 50, hosted several debauched parties, according to the New York Post. The paper wrote about a "nude frolic" at one such party Leder hosted last summer at a rented home in Bridgehampton, N.Y.:
It was as if the Playboy Mansion met the East End at a wild party at private-equity titan Marc Leder's Bridgehampton estate, where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.
Leder, who made his fortune as co-founder of the private equity firm Sun Capital, is linked to the darker side of private equity. Around 20 percent of companies that Sun Capital owns have filed for bankruptcy since 2008: 28 companies in all, including the restaurant chain Friendly's, according to The New York Times. Friendly's laid off 1,260 workers overnight when it filed for bankruptcy last year, according to Daily Finance.
Romney made controversial remarks at Leder's home in Boca Raton, Fla., on May 17, according to Mother Jones' David Corn, telling attendees that 47 percent of Americans are Obama voters who "believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
(Hat tip: Mother Jones' David Corn.)