The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission plans to penalize City Attorney Tom Carr for failing to report a $400 deposit that included $200 from Gil Levy, the attorney for the controversial Rick’s strip club (for more about Strippergate, see here) in a timely fashion. Carr’s campaign waited more than four and a half months to report the contributions. In a letter to Carr’s treasurer, Ethics and Elections head Wayne Barnett wrote,
A major purpose of the Seattle Elections Code is to give the public timely access to information regarding all contributions and expenditures made supporting or opposing City candidates. One of the contributors whose identity was not timely reported was Gilbert Levy, Esq. Our records show that Mr. Levy’s last two contributions to City of Seattle candidates [ed. note: city council members Richard Conlin and Nick Licata] were refunded to him by the candidates. Given this history, it is unlikely that the contribution would have gone unnoticed had it been timely reported.
Although the potential penalty for the elections infraction could be as high as $1,320—$10 for each day the contribution went unreported—the commission fined Carr just $125, based on the fact that the contribution was relatively small and that the Carr campaign itself reported the violation.
Carr says the campaign refunded both contributions from the report, which he says were “the only two” contributions the campaign’s reporting service has ever missed.
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