(MIC) Lobbyist charged with making illegal campaign donations

[unhappycamper]

Lobbyist charged with making illegal campaign donations
By Greg Gordon and Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, August 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury on Thursday charged a once-powerful Washington lobbyist with evading federal limits on campaign donations by using straw donors to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Congress, especially those with influence over military spending.

The 11-count indictment, handed up in Alexandria, Va., charges that Paul Magliocchetti concealed from politicians that that he and his now-defunct firm, PMA Group Inc., were the true source of many of the campaign donations from his family, friends, employees and other straw donors. Corporations are barred from donating to federal election campaigns.

While large illegal foreign donations have been uncovered before, Magliocchetti's alleged scheme may have reached unprecedented proportions for U.S. congressional donors.

Magliocchetti, his family and the firm's political action committee gave over $2 million to members of Congress since 1991, and he's accused of reimbursing donors with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses, kickbacks, corporate checks or personal checks from 2003 to 2008.

Larry Norton, a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, said he couldn't recall "a corporate reimbursement case of that scale or even close," adding that it likely will feed public cynicism about the influence of special interests in the nation's capital.