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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (489492)	6/2/2012 7:32:26 AM
From: Tom Clarke	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793964

Local story, but of interest. No doubt par for the course in union heavy states. FBI arrests Chris Donovan's congressional fundraiser May 31, 2012 By Mark Pazniokas and Keith M. Phaneuf The finance director for House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan's congressional campaign was arrested Wednesday by FBI agents and charged with illegally concealing the source of two $10,000 contributions for his campaign, authorities said Thursday. Donovan fired the fundraiser, Robert Braddock Jr., and his campaign manager, Josh Nassi, and hired Tom Swan of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group to take over his campaign just 10 weeks from the Democratic primary on Aug. 14. Braddock, 33, of Meriden, was arrested at his apartment on a criminal complaint that says he conspired with others to hide contributions from a person who wanted to kill a tobacco tax bill before the General Assembly. Nassi was not charged, but an unnamed campaign aide was implicated by the authorities. The money came from an undercover FBI agent posing a business investor opposed to a proposal to tax roll-your-own cigarettes, according to an affidavit on file in U.S. District Court. The tax bill never came to a vote. [...] Braddock was hired as a professional fundraiser. He was a co-founder of Progressive Capital Strategies, a political fundraising firm. Its website described him as "Politically savvy and exceptionally motivated, Mr. Braddock is an accomplished finance director and fundraising consultant with proven experience crafting and implementing successful capital raising plans for Democratic candidates." [...] The arrest affidavit did not indicate why the investigation was initiated, but it describes a series of conversations that quickly followed a vote April 3 by the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee to approve the tax proposal. An undercover agent provided $11,000 in cash to a conspirator, $10,000 to be converted into four $2,500 checks that would be donated to Donovan's campaign and $1,000 as a fee. A second $10,000 in bundled contributions was delivered in May, with three $2,500 checks going to the Donovan campaign and one to a political party. One of the co-conspirators, identified in the affidavit as CC-1, agreed to cooperate with the government after being confronted by the FBI on April 26. In one of his calls with Braddock, CC-1 refers to the conduits in whose names contributions were made as "a--hole drug addicts." One them apparently failed to deposit the cash, so the check to the campaign bounced. "The last time one of these a--hole drug addicts bounced a check even though we put the f-cking money right in their hand," CC-1 complained to Braddock, according to the affidavit. CC-1 asked Braddock to double-check if the checks cleared in the second bundle of $10,000. "Because I don't want to, ah, look like an idiot in front of my, you know, my future congressman," CC-1 said. "No, I, I understand," Braddock replied. CC-1 also referred to the conduits as drunks. It was unclear if they literally used drug addicts and drunks to make the contributions or if CC-1 was engaging in hyperbole. "You can't trust the drunks," CC-1 said. Braddock laughed. "You know. You know. Grabbing these drunks and drug addicts and saying, 'Here, write this check,'" CC-1 said. Braddock laughed again. "Like I said, you know, it was a very good investment for us to kill that bill," CC-1 said. "And they want to stay friends for a long time." ctmirror.org This is co-conspirator #1, a prison guard and a union official with AFSCME courant.com