CA Sec of State Shelley Controversy Grows w/ Campaign Donations

[Pachamama]

Hmmmmm.....Coincidink? Does anyone else here on the DU think that this is just awfully convenient to have this "suddenely" happen less than 3 months prior to perhaps the most important presidential election of our lifetimes and in a state where the Democratic Secretary of State Kevin Shelley had taken a bold move early on in de-certifying the Diebold voting machines and his other efforts for getting absentee voters in CA? Anyone else think that the Republicans might demand his resignation soon so Ahnuld can try to appoint a Republican replacement? Hmmmmm......:think:
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Donations to Shelley raise new questions -$30,000 political contribution was made on same day as 3-way property transaction

Saturday, August 14, 2004
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Julie Lee, a San Francisco real estate agent at the center of a federal investigation into $175,000 in suspect donations to Kevin Shelley's 2002 campaign for secretary of state, may have diverted another $30,000 to the campaign as part of a three-way real estate deal, according to state and city records.

With the help of a friend, Lee and her husband, Shing-Kit Lee, sold a home in the city's Portola district to Eliana Maldonado, 62, on Sept. 27, 2002, city records show. The same day, Maldonado wrote two checks to Shelley's campaign totaling $30,000, the second-largest amount Shelley received from an individual, noncorporate donor during the race, campaign records show.

The donation from Maldonado is the latest in a series of potentially illegal contributions to Shelley's campaign reported by The Chronicle this week. Those donations all appear to have ties to Lee or the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center, which she founded in 1999 to provide services to immigrants. The donations, including Maldonado's, total $205,000. Shelley's campaign raised a total of $2.15 million.

The FBI, which raided Lee's office Thursday, the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state controller and state attorney general all began looking into donations to Shelley's campaign this week.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/14/MNG0287MJO50.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/shelley/