Campaign fines top $45,000 (Maine)

[MaineDem]

AUGUSTA — The state ethics commission handed out more than $45,000 in fines Thursday to four people accused of the largest abuse of the Maine Clean Election law in its 10-year history. The commission voted to penalize a pair of political consultants and two candidates for misusing $40,000 in public campaign funds they received in 2004.

One of the political consultants, Dan Rogers of Auburn, received an additional fine for distributing a phony mailing apparently intended to malign a candidate in a race for the state House of Representatives in Biddeford in 2004.

Charges against the four people fined Thursday included failing to return computers and stamps bought with public money, creating false invoices, and providing no record of what they had done with thousands of dollars in Clean Election funds.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/060106ethics.shtml

Maine has a pretty good Clean Election Law. Some people have taken advantage of it. They don't all get away with it as evidenced by this decision.