Political donations from vets scammer downplayed

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http://hamptonroads.com/2013/09/political-donations-vets-scammer-downplayed



John Donald Cody, right, talks with his attorney Mark Stanton during his hearing in Cuyahoga County Court in Cleveland on Tuesday, May 8, 2012. Federal authorities said Cody, who originally was identified as Bobby Thompson, is accused of running a scam that collected millions in donations from people who believed they were helping U.S. Navy veterans.

Political donations from vets scammer downplayed
By Julie Carr Smyth
The Associated Press
© September 18, 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio

The Ohio attorney general's multi-state case against a man accused of fraud after collecting as much as $100 million in the name of Navy veterans doesn't address the man's donations to a who's who of mostly Republican politicians, including the attorney general himself.

The political donations tied to the man who calls himself Bobby Thompson, and to the United States Navy Veterans Association, his Tampa, Fla.-based charity, are "kind of a sidebar to the scam," Attorney General Mike DeWine said. Recipients included George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and other high-profile politicians.

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But investigating the political side of Thompson's case would seem "pretty basic due diligence," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks the use of political donations.

"Here's really serious fraud and potential corruption," she said. "Who knows what could surface in an investigation, but you wonder with somebody who is willing to break the rules so egregiously whether he had help and whether he had elicited any promises in exchange for his support."