Remember the case of Kelo vs. New London?  Briefly, it was a case in which homeowners including Susette Kelo sued their municipality to stop it from taking their homes using the power of eminent domain.  The city wanted to raze the homes and redevelop the area, making it shiny and new to complement the anticipated Pfizer pharmaceutical research facility.  After all, one musn’t allow the shabby dwellings of the peasantry to mar the image of success and corporate uniformity that one is trying to project:

So, the politicians picked a 24-acre lot and sold it Pfizer for $10, adding on special tax breaks. Also, state and local governments promised $26 million to clean up contamination on the lot and a nearby junkyard.

But Pfizer executive David Burnett thought New London needed to do some more cleaning. “Pfizer wants a nice place to operate,” the Hartford Courant quoted Burnett in 2001. “We don’t want to be surrounded by tenements.” The old Victorian houses in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood next door did not match Pfizer’s vision – a high-rise hotel or luxury condominiums would be more fitting.

This redevelopment was supposed to provide 3,169 new jobs and an additional $1.2 million per year in tax revenue.  These economic benefits formed the basis of the city’s dubious claim that they were justified in using eminent domain to take private property from one group of owners to benefit another group of private owners.  The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in favor of the City of New London.

Incidentally, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there was a great deal of potentially improper influence occurring.  As the Washington Examiner reports:

…New London was really another example of political cronyism and politicians using the might of government in order to benefit well-connected big business at the expense of those poorer and less influential.

Consider that the head of the New London Development Corporation was Claire Gaudiani, who was married to David Burnett, the Pfizer executive who wanted “a nice place to operate.” Pfizer vice president George Milne also sat on the development corporation’s board. In the courtroom, former development consultant Jimmy Hicks called Pfizer the “10,000-pound gorilla” in the planning process, and said “the entire municipal development plan — it was related back to Pfizer.”

So Pfizer got its loot – free land, special tax breaks, and government-funded clean-up of the neighborhood (including clearing out the unsightly neighbors) – and the area prepared for economic “rejuvenation,” as Justice Stevens put it.

Fast forward 4 years to today: Pfizer has announced that they are leaving their development in New London as a cost cutting measure following their merger with Wyeth.  So the city gets jack, after spending some $78 million to bulldoze the existing properties, to say nothing about the costs of the litigation involved.  Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Pfizer’s property tax abatement is due to expire in 2011, causing their property tax bill to go from $1.3 million to $6.1 million.

Is it becoming clear, the extent to which all levels of government have been captured by corporate interests?  The promised carrots of increased tax revenue and jobs may never materialize, or they may become sticks whereby the corporation is able to extract favorable concessions from local officials using the threat of relocation.  Redevelopment plans are generally sold to the public and local policymakers as “win-win”, yet somehow only the corporations end up winning.

But what should one expect when dealing with these powerful corporate interests?  After all, Pfizer is a repeat felon.  Just last month, they pled guilty (for the third time) to a felony charge of marketing drugs for unapproved uses.  The same day, they paid the largest criminal fine in U.S. history ($1.19 billion), and also paid $1 billion to settle related civil claims in 49 states.  That may sound like a lot of money, but it turns out that crime does pay– especially when the criminals are large corporations.  Bloomberg reports:

As large as the penalties are for drug companies caught breaking the off-label law, the fines are tiny compared with the firms’ annual revenues.

The $2.3 billion in fines and penalties Pfizer paid for marketing Bextra and three other drugs cited in the Sept. 2 plea agreement for off-label uses amount to just 14 percent of its $16.8 billion in revenue from selling those medicines from 2001 to 2008.

The total of $2.75 billion Pfizer has paid in off-label penalties since 2004 is a little more than 1 percent of the company’s revenue of $245 billion from 2004 to 2008.

Gee, why would they ever stop these felonious practices? But it sure makes a great press release for the Justice Department– they can argue that they are aggressively pursuing corporate criminals and getting huge fines.  Please, if you have the time, read the whole Bloomberg article.  I promise you will be shocked by the scale and audacity of the criminal behavior exhibited.