Conn. officials trade charges on financing

April 25, 2009|Susan Haigh, Associated Press

HARTFORD - The list of expenses on Connecticut House Speaker Christopher Donovan's reelection campaign filing were intriguing: a $10 French manicure, gasoline purchased in New York, junk food, Amtrak tickets, and a pair of eyeglasses.

It was enough to prompt Chris Healy, chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, to send a formal complaint to the State Elections Enforcement Commission yesterday, alleging that all of the purchases, made on a campaign debit card after the election was over, were improper under the state's public financing law.

But the expenditures Healy saw tucked inside Donovan's campaign filing, posted on a state website, apparently did not tell the whole story. Missing was a letter from Donovan's treasurer explaining how her emotionally troubled, 19-year-old daughter had taken the campaign debit card without her knowledge to New York City, where the young woman was later found in a hospital.

Mildred Torres Ferguson, the treasurer, had paid back the $2,200 in January.

Donovan called reporters together yesterday afternoon and accused Healy of playing politics without considering the consequences.

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