[StBernard] Boasso campaign committee fined

[Westley Annis]

Boasso campaign committee fined
Charge centers on $1.2 million deal with consulting firm
November 6, 2009 

BATON ROUGE, (AP) - The campaign committee for former gubernatorial
candidate Walter Boasso violated campaign finance laws, a three-judge panel
of administrative law judges ruled in a decision released Friday.


 
The panel ordered the campaign committee to pay a $230 fine, far short of
the maximum $2,500 penalty the Louisiana Board of Ethics recommended in the
case.


The judges agreed with the state ethics board that the Boasso campaign
committee didn't accurately file disclosure reports because it didn't
properly itemize $1.2 million in expenses involving a Philadelphia
consulting firm, Shorr Johnson Magnus.


The campaign listed the spending as "media buys" in a July 2007 finance
report and two months later filed an amended report that itemized the
spending, after a complaint was filed with the ethics board.


A political consultant for the Boasso campaign testified that he had never
seen a candidate itemize media buys in a campaign for office.


The ethics board also had levied a charge against Boasso in the case, but
later withdrew the complaint. Boasso wasn't involved in the preparation and
filing of the campaign finance reports, the law judges said in the ruling.
Only Boasso's campaign committee was found in violation.


Boasso, a Democrat from St. Bernard Parish, lost his bid for governor to
Bobby Jindal in 2007.