2 years ago
The Erie County Board of Elections says it has additional evidence that Sabres owner Tom Golisano and former Democratic party chairman Steve Pigeon teamed up to break state election laws.
Board commissioners Ralph Mohr, a Republican, and Dennis Ward, a Democrat, say that Golisano used Piegon's political action committee to launder campaign donations that Golisano made to Joe Mesi's campaign for state senate.
The two commissioners are asking Golisano and officers of his PAC, Responsible New York, to appear before the Board of Elections and answer questions under oath about the allegations.
Last week, Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark said he'll look into charges that former Democratic Party Chairman Steve Pigeon repeatedly broke state election laws.
Erie County's Republican Elections Commissioner, Ralph Mohr, is charging Pigeon broke state election law more than 20 times over the past three years.
Pigeon has his own political action committee called Citizens For Fiscal Integrity. Pigeon is also running the new political action committee formed by Sabres' owner Tom Golisano.
Mohr says Pigeon has repeatedly hid thousands of dollars in campaign donations he's received, as well as thousands in contributions he's made to political candidates, evading campaign disclosure laws.
"What you have is a financial shell game," says Mohr. "That allows candidates to take money in excess of the campaign election law, and they would be able to take money from people that they would not want to have disclosed on their election reports."
Scott Brown: "Do you take these allegations with a grain of salt, knowing they're coming from a Republican party official less than two weeks before election day?" Frank Clark: "I take with a grain of salt the timing of it, but it doesn't lessen the seriousness of it. "I'll look at it in terms of whether or not there's violations of election law or the penal law. If there's fire, then I'll start an investigation, if there's just smoke, I'll just close it." Clark says it could take "eight to ten weeks" before he decides whether he'll launch a criminal investigation into the charges.The Board of Elections subpoenaed the bank records of Pigeon's group, here's some of what it found:
- $11,000 worth of donations to Pigeon's group from former County Executive Joel Giambra that were never reported;
- A two thousand dollar donation to Joe Mesi's senate campaign was never listed;
- A $4,000 check from Tom Golisano's political action committee, Responsible New York to Pigeon's group. On the memo line of the check it's written that it's for Mesi's campaign.
By law, Golisano's group is not permitted to coordinate its efforts with individual candidates.
"There is some tie between Responsible New York, the Joe Mesi campaign, and Citizens For Fiscal Integrity in the expenditures and contributions being made," charged Mohr.
Mohr says the probe was prompted by the State Board of Elections, which said Pigeon's group hadn't been filing its financial reports, which is required by law.
Scott Brown: "What if people were to say 'here's the Republican elections commissioner making these charges two weeks before election day, this stinks of politics?'"
Mohr: "This could have been cleared up several months ago had the responsible officers for the Citizens For Fiscal Integrity showed up with their books in response to our request, obviously they did not, and when we subpoenaed the records the answer became clear."
Though Pigeon and Golisano initially did not respond to numerous messages for comment by 2 On Your Side, Golisano agreed to talk about them when he was in Cheektowaga Tuesday night to accept the UB School of Management's "Niagara Frontier Executive of the Year" award, at which time he said the allegations were nothing but "political bluster"
"We did nothing wrong," said Golisano in telling WGRZ his $4,000 donation to Pigeon's group was on the up and up.
"The check was not made to the Mesi campaign, it was made to distribute and it was made to purchase pamphlets and distribute pamphlets in support of Joe Mesi....which is perfectly legal as long as we don't coordinate with the Mesi campaign and as long as we don't talk the issues with the Mesi campaign."
Regarding the suggestions that there was "coordination" between Golisano's PAC and the Mesi campaign because each produced a TV commercial using an identical picture of mesi, Golisano explained:
"I guess what happened is Joe Mesi's campaign used a picture that was pulled off the internet, and when we did our advertising in support of Joe Mesi we happened to use the same picture so it was just a coincidence. I don't how using the same picture would be any violation of anything much less state campaign law."
Mesi's campaign called Mohr's allegations a "political stunt" and said that it has not coordinated any activities with Golisano's political action committee.At a forum for candidates at the University at Buffalo, Joe Mesi talked with 2-On-Your-Side.
Kristin Donnelly asks, "
Is there anything shady going on here?"Mesi answers, "Look at my only comment is investigate, we've been hearing this since June."
Donnelly asks, "Have you seen this check that has your name on it and a consulting reference?"
"I don't handle anything to do with the funds and no... that has nothing to do there's zero correspondence and it's the same rhetoric that I would only expect from the other side," Mesi answers.
"Well, this check would indicate that they did some consulting work for you, which would be against election law," Donnelly asks.
"We've got go," Mesi said, "There's been zero coordinance, I recommend that they investigate. That's why I'm running to go investigate Albany."
