Jeffrey Thompson. Photo from CSPAN.Barely hours after a former employee of alleged straw donation funder Jeff Thompson pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation, another associate of the former D.C. Medicaid contractor is in trouble with the feds. Ron Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, filed a criminal information against Stanley L. Straughter, a Philadelphia-based consultant with ties to Thompson’s old accounting firm.
Documents filed today allege that Straughter made illegal donations in 2010 to one U.S. House candidate and one U.S. Senate candidate totaling between $2,000 and $25,000. While the donations were signed by Straughter and members of his family, the criminal information states, they were allegedly paid for by an individual referred to only as “Executive A,” though the description of “Executive A” matches Thompson perfectly.
Straughter’s company, Oak Lane Consulting Group, provided marketing services to Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates, Thompson’s former accounting firm. (He sold his majority stake in the company, which is now called Bazilio Cobb Associates. The renamed firm is trying to distance itself from its former principal.)
While the candidates who received the donations are unnamed in the filing, a search of federal campaign records reveals that Slaughter made donations in 2010 to Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who died last October.
D.C. campaign finance records also show that over a period dating back to 2007, Straughter and his wife made donations to a swath of local campaigns, including the mayoral bids of Adrian Fenty and Vince Gray, and D.C. Council runs by Vincent Orange, Kwame Brown, Michael A. Brown, Muriel Bowser, and Delano Hunter.
Earlier on Thursday, Lee C. Calhoun, an executive with Bazilio Cobb, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor campaign finance violation for using his name and those of his relatives to mask political donations he says were actually made by Thompson.
