nothin Judge Releases Ex-Campaign Treasurer | New Haven Independent

Judge Releases Ex-Campaign Treasurer

Paul Bass Photo

Sandra McKinnie with public defender Maggie Castinado Monday.

As family and friends watched on in support, a New Haven woman appeared in court Monday on charges of stealing money from a second political campaign — this time a local race for alderman.

New Haven police arrested the woman, Sandra McKinnie, over the weekend on third-degree larceny and illegual use of a credit card charges. According to an arrest warrant in the case, McKinnie stole $2,810.70 — mostly in small local withdrawals, with the exception of a big shopping trip to Macy’s in New York — for personal gain” from the 2009 campaign of Edgewood Alderwoman Liz McCormack. McKinnie served as McCormack’s campaign treasurer.

McKinnie, who’s 49, spent the weekend in police custody when she couldn’t meet a $10,000 bond. In Courtroom B of the Elm State state courthouse Monday, Judge Joseph Licari released her on a promise to appear again on Oct. 2.

Paul Bass File Photo

McKinnie (at right) with state Rep. Holder-Winfield at a 2009 fundraiser for Liz McCormack.

McKinnie already had an Oct. 2 court date scheduled on a separate larceny charge. The state arrested her on Friday for allegedly stealing $4,270 from the 2008 state representative campaign of Gary Holder-Winfield. McKinnie was Holder-Winfield’s campaign treasurer, too. An arrest warrant (read it here) quotes McKinnie admitting she wasn’t diligent” about the treasurer job (a role she described as campaign piss girl”) but denying using money for personal reasons or for any reasons other than campaign. Read all about that case here.

Approached in court before her appearance Monday, McKinnie declined comment.

Afterwards, outside the courtroom, her sister, Valerie McKinnie, spoke in her defense.

She’s innocent until proven guilty,” said the sister, who sat with fellow family members and friends during the brief court appearance. I believe she is innocent.”

Sandra McKinnie’s public defender, Maggie Castinado, urged the judge to release McKinnie on a promise to appear. She said McKinnie had turned herself in to face the charges.

The prosecutor, Joseph LaMotta (at right in photo), didn’t take a position on whether to release McKinnie without bond. He did tell the judge: This will make two pending cases for the same behavior in two different campaigns. She’s got two cases pending. I think the bond is at the court’s discretion’s, but I did want to point [that] out.”

McKinnie, wearing a denim jacket over a sweater, did not speak at the proceeding. Over the years, besides volunteering for political campaigns, McKinnie has been active in community events through a previous position with the Community Action Agency. She spearheaded a 2009 – 2010 effort to get as many New Haveners as possible signed up with the U.S. Census.

Warrant Signed In May

New Haven police have had a signed warrant for McKinnie’s arrest since May 1. She is believed to have been out of state since that time.

Assistant Police Chief Archie Generoso said North Haven police notified New Haven police Friday night that they had McKinnie with them; the New Haven police transported her to police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., where she was finally served with the warrant the next day, according to Generoso.

The warrant stemmed from the 2009 campaign for alderman in Edgewood’s 24th Ward.

Click here to read a story about a fundraising event from the campaign, where McKinnie spoke on McCormack’s behalf.

After McCormack (pictured) lost that election, she started hearing from people who never got paid for work on the campaign. Months of investigation followed.

I didn’t find out there were people not getting paid until the [2009 aldermanic] election was over,” McCormack recalled in an interview Sunday evening. Then people started saying they never got checks.”

McCormack said she asked McKinnie about the complaints. McKinnie replied that she needed more money to pay the bills, according to McCormack. So McCormack raised another $2,000.

She took that money, too,” McCormack claimed. People still said they didn’t get paid.”

McKinnie was the only signatory to the account, according to McCormack. That meant McCormack couldn’t at first retrieve records from the account, which was housed at the former Wachovia (now Wells Fargo) bank.

So she fired McKinnie as treasurer and replaced her with activist Gwen Mills.

McCormack and Mills then spent months piecing together records from the bank reports, from deposit slips, from withdrawals and payments, and matched them to campaign reports. We rebuilt the entire campaign finance picture,” Mills said in an interview.

In the end they found almost $2,810.70 allegedly unaccounted for. Most of it was withdrawn in small amounts — $20 or $40 at a time — through the use of a Visa debit card, according to McCormack. There was [one] large charge at Macy’s in New York,” McCormack said.

They brought their findings to city police in mid-2010. The department was in transition at the time. McCormack said one detective assigned to the case retired; another was transferred. At one point the records were missing, she said.

Then Detective Rosealee Reid took over the case. She was the one who got everything going,” said McCormack. Mills agreed Reid did a good job.”

In her application for the arrest warrant, Reid wrote that McKinnie had failed to show up to meetings with McCormack and Hill Alderman Jorge Perez to discuss the discrepancies, which occurred between May 2009 through February 2010. At least four campaign filings were unaccounted for,” Reid wrote.

The charges stem from 84 ATM cash withdrawals done at banks all over New Haven,” according to the warrant. They included “[S]upermarket and gas purchases using the Visa/Debit and a purchase from Macy’s West 34th Street in New York City.” Detective Reid reported doing a line by line audit” with Mills and arriving at the exact amount of unaccounted-for money.

Thomas MacMillan File Photo

McKinnie at at the kick-off to a 2009 campaign to sign up New Haveners for the U.S. Census.

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