Chad Brownstein's internship turns into Hottest Girl prize -- and turns him into a Shmuck

Denver attorney Norm Brownstein -- of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck -- is often referred to a political power broker. But it's his sons who've been doing the brokering of late, and unfortunately "power" isn't one of the commodities they've been trading. On Thursday, Chad Brownstein was forced to apologize...

By Jonathan Shikes

April 27, 2012

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Denver attorney Norm Brownstein -- of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck -- is often referred to a political power broker. But it's his sons who've been doing the brokering of late, and unfortunately "power" isn't one of the commodities they've been trading. On Thursday, Chad Brownstein was forced to apologize to U.S. Senator Mark Pryor after the younger Brownstein auctioned off a month-long paid internship in Pryor's office, according to news reports. The auction was part of a fundraising campaign for a Los Angeles synagogue.

That was a bad idea. Not only did Chad fail to obtain approval from Pryor to offer the internship, but the successful bidder turned out to be none other than Joe Francis, the founder of the Girls Gone Wild video series, who turned around and offered the plump position as a prize on his TV series, The Search for the Hottest Girl in America, which looks a little something like this:

In his apology letter, Chad reportedly said his father's office had nothing to do with the situation. Pryor's office had already contacted the FBI, however, because the senator believe the posting on the Girls Gone Wild website was a hoax.

The synagogue has since returned the money to Francis, according to The Washingtonian.com (where you can see the entire apology letter).

But Chad isn't the only Brownstein Son Gone Wild. His other son, Bo Brownstein, pleaded guilty last October to insider trading and was sentenced in January to a year a prison; he was also forced to give up $2.4 million he had made from the trades.

Sounds like Norm's going to have to put both boys on time-out.

Jonathan Shikes is a Denver native who writes about business and beer for Westword.

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