Discrepancies found in reports from PACs controlled by Pigeon
With the Internet, the state Board of Elections has made great strides in recent years to deliver campaign finance information to more New Yorkers.
Visitors to www.elections.state.ny.us can see data on the flow of money from special interests to politicians. Visitors also can see how their politicians reported spending this money. But they see only the information that campaign-fund treasurers provide. Bank records subpoenaed by the Erie County Board of Elections revealed that two political committees controlled by G. Steven Pigeon failed to report several donations and expenses. Here are a few that the Erie County Board of Elections says it found during an investigation:
• Citizens for Fiscal Integrity, supporting Pigeon-friend Gary Parenti in his race for Assembly in 2006, received $5,000 on Aug. 31 of that year from then-County Executive Joel A. Giambra’s committee, the Friends of Joel Giambra; $1,500 from Pigeon’s personal checking account; and $2,500 indirectly from Watermark Financial, an investment company the Securities and Exchange Commission would later allege operated a Ponzi scheme.
The Watermark check was made out to Pigeon for “legal consulting—August.”
While a total of $9,000 was deposited, the transaction was initially recorded as only a $4,000 deposit from Pigeon, the commissioners said. Giambra’s $5,000 deposit was missed, although the Friends of Joel Giambra reported making the payment.
A week after the $9,000 was collected, the Citizens for Fiscal Integrity was able to cover a $9,000 invoice from a direct-mail company that Parenti had been using.
• In mid-July of 2008, Citizens for Fiscal Integrity filed a statement saying it had no activity to report for the first half of the year. But after the county Board of Elections issued its subpoena for bank records, the committee instead filed a report saying it had received $5,000 and spent $4,000 in the first six months.
It had directly spread $3,000 to the campaigns of State Senate candidate Joe Mesi, a Democrat; Frank A. Sedita III, a Democrat running for district attorney; and Democrat Barbra Kavanaugh, running in an Assembly primary against incumbent Sam Hoyt of Buffalo.
• During the second week of June 2008, the People for Accountable Government had too little money on deposit at M&T Bank to write a $1,000 check, the county elections commissioners learned during their investigation. But the committee on June 12 deposited a $1,000 check from the Friends of Joel Giambra and then wrote a $1,000 check to the Friends of Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles mayor who was holding a fundraiser in New York City.
At the same time, the Friends of Joel Giambra wrote another $1,000 check for the Villaraigosa fund when $1,000 is the maximum that can be donated to a Los Angeles mayoral candidate.
Said Giambra: “I was not aware the money I gave to Mr. Pigeon’s PAC [political action committee] was going to any specific candidates.”
• The Erie County elections commissioners cite the Villaraigosa transaction as an example of one that exceeded contribution limits, in this case California’s. Another example involves Citizens for Fiscal Integrity and the Responsible New York fund formed by billionaire B. Thomas Golisano.
The commissioners found that Responsible New York last year gave $4,000 to Citizens for Fiscal Integrity. Noted on the check was that it was to go toward the party primary expenses for Mesi in his Senate campaign.
CFI, however, had already donated some $3,000 to Mesi’s campaign. Assuming that the $4,000 was spent on CFI’s Mesi- related expenses, commissioners reason that CFI exceeded contribution limits for the primary.
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