Remember Bill Burke, the guy who offered to buy the Dodgers last week with $1.2 billion of China's money?

Something about that didn't smell quite right, so last week we tracked down his wife's financial disclosure statement from 2003. Turns out, the Burkes are worth no more than $6.8 million. That means that Bill Burke is not in any meaningful sense the “lead investor” on this bid. He's the front man.

But we're not going to let it drop there. Today, we've obtained a more recent financial disclosure. This one's from 2011. And it looks like he's even poorer than we thought.

Burke is chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and as such is required to file his own Form 700 (posted below). According to that document, Burke has, at most, $4.3 million.

OK, so he's not poor. It seems he and his wife, Supervisor Yvonne Burke, still have a six-figure income, and have bought a nice place in Cabo San Lucas. Good for them. But to put it in perspective: If they sold everything they owned, they wouldn't be able to cover James Loney's salary for one year.

So the questions are piling up on this alleged offer. Why would China want to invest in a baseball team? There's no obvious reason they would. But assuming they did, why would they team up with Bill Burke to do it? Makes no sense. 

One other thing, while we're on this. Why does the chair of the AQMD hold several thousand dollars worth of ExxonMobil stock? Seriously. WTF.
Bill Burke 2011 Financial Disclosure

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