Complaint Probes Mayor’s Ties To PAC

A group formed to promote the mayor’s ​“clean” elections law wants the state to investigate fishy funding for the mayor’s own campaign.

Caleb Kleppner (pictured), board chairman of the Democracy Fund, plans to file the complaint today with the State Elections Enforcement Commission.

The Democracy Fund is calling on the state to investigate charges that the mayor’s reelection campaign violated state and local elections laws by accepting hidden contributions from a political action committee.

An attorney for the DeStefano campaign failed to dissuade the Fund from acting on what he called ​“inferences.”

The complaint centers on a political action committee (PAC) called the Elm & Oak PAC, which shared office space and staff with Mayor John DeStefano’s 2009 reelection campaign.

DeStefano used the PAC to pay over $25,500 in expenses for his 2009 reelection campaign, violating state law and the local clean elections law the mayor pioneered, Kleppner’s complaint will charge.

A draft of the complaint was discussed at Monday’s meeting of the Democracy Fund, the board set up at the mayor’s urging to administer the city’s public financing program for municipal campaigns. The board voted 5 to 0 to move forward with the SEEC complaint, which Kleppner plans to file Tuesday under his own name.

The discussion came on the heels of a similar talk last month, when the board gave the mayor a pass for ​“flying in the face of” the spirit of the clean elections law by moving cash into a different PAC to support aldermanic candidates.

At the heart of SEEC complaint is the same issue: Whether DeStefano kept to the rules of the clean elections program he helped establish in 2007. The program aims to minimize the influence of city contractors and lobbyists by giving public grants to candidates who agree to lower limits on contributions. By participating in the program this year, the mayor agreed to take no more than $340 from any individual — and to take no money from any PAC.

Neither the PAC nor DeStefano’s campaign reported any contributions from the PAC to the campaign. But Kleppner laid out a series of facts that point to a pattern of coordination and shared resources that he claims break the law.

Kleppner charged that DeStefano and the PAC broke local and state laws through their cozy relationship. According to state law, a PAC cannot contribute more than $1,500 per election to any one candidate committee.

The mayor’s campaign allegedly broke local and state laws by accepting excessive in-kind donations from a PAC, and by failing to report them. The PAC broke state law by making excessive donations, the complaint charges.

Kleppner’s complaint is based on campaign finance filings and on interviews in Elizabeth Benton’s Register story on the topic.

The Elm & Oak PAC was established in February 2007. It is chaired by Debra Hauser, an East Rock Democrat and active fundraiser. DeStefano reportedly was the sole fundraiser for the PAC.

Since DeStefano declared his candidacy for mayor in early 2009, up to 83 percent of the PAC’s expenditures went to DeStefano’s campaign, according to Democracy Fund Administrator Robert Wechsler, who did the research and drafted the complaint.

Payments supporting the mayor’s campaign total $25,587, Wechsler calculated.

Payments include an office on Church Street that DeStefano and the PAC shared. The PAC paid most of the rent and apparently paid the entire phone bill.

The PAC also paid nearly $20,000 to political staffers who worked for DeStefano’s campaign. That figure includes $13,962.50 to Keya Jayaram, DeStefano’s campaign manager.

DeStefano and the PAC shared contributors, too. At least 28 people donated to both DeStefano’s campaign and the Elm & Oak PAC, according to Wechsler. When they hit the $340 ceiling for DeStefano’s campaign, contributors were told they could keep supporting the mayor by contributing to the PAC, the complaint states.

With the facts laid out before them, Democracy Fund members reached the same conclusion.

“It did seem to me that there were some obvious malfeasances,” said board member Steve Kovel.

Board member Maria Lamberto (pictured) agreed that there appears to be improper in-kind contributions to the mayor’s campaign.

Kleppner noted that nothing is proven — he’s making inferences based on available facts. He said he needs the state to investigate because the board does not have jurisdiction over PACs.

To prove these charges, the state will have to show that DeStefano’s campaign received in-kind contributions from the PAC. The PAC would have to justify its expenditures and show that no more than $1,500 was spent to directly support DeStefano.

Attorney Elia Alexiades (pictured) showed up Monday night on behalf of DeStefano’s 2009 campaign. He suggested the board undertake its own investigation instead of calling on the state to step in. He asked that witnesses, such as the campaign staff, be called in to defend the allegations if the board takes that step.

He noted that the draft complaint is based on ​“inferences,” not proven allegations. And he called the complaint too hasty, given that the campaign has yet to file its last campaign finance report, which is due on Jan. 10.

Alexiades’ comments did not dissuade the board from voting to move forward with the SEEC complaint. The info in the past filings provides ample evidence to launch a state investigation, Wechsler noted. After that, the state will start the investigation from scratch, he said.

In other news, the DeStefano campaign had to give back $4,160 in campaign contributions that exceeded the limit for individual donations, which is $340. The refund checks were issued from June 30 to Dec. 12. Most of the refunds were a result of the campaign’s own self-policing.

Five refunds, totaling $1,040, were issued because the board alerted the campaign to the impropriety, according to Wechsler.