US campaign treasurer Kinde Durkee admits looting $7m


  • by: From correspondents California
  • From: AP
  • March 31, 2012 5:48AM

A FORMER California campaign treasurer has pleaded guilty to looting at least $US7 million ($6.76 million) from the accounts of dozens of Democratic candidates and political organisations, in one of the most egregious political embezzlement cases in the United States.
Kinde Durkee, who had operated Durkee & Associates of Burbank until her arrest in September last year, entered the plea to five counts of mail fraud in US District Court in Sacramento. The plea deal carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in federal prison.

It ended a criminal case that left numerous state and federal candidates with little or no money in their campaign accounts, heading into an election year in which they face newly drawn districts and a new primary system.

Durkee, 59, now faces civil lawsuits from Senator Dianne Feinstein, who believes she may have lost as much as $US5 million, and other victims.

Prosecutors say she controlled some 700 bank accounts and embezzled money from at least 50 victims, including members of California's Democratic congressional delegation, Democratic state lawmakers and various political organisations.

Court filings say the money went to pay mortgages on Durkee's homes, various business expenses that included health care benefits and retirement fund accounts for her employees, and her mother's care in a home for seniors.

She also used the political accounts to pay for an array of personal expenses, including bills from Disneyland, Costco, Amazon.com, Ulta cosmetics and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Neither Durkee nor her lawyer had spoken publicly since her arrest.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission said the Durkee case was by far the largest political embezzlement case in state history. Officials with the Federal Election Commission said it was the largest they could recall.

In 2010, Christopher Ward, a former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee, pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $US850,000 from the NRCC and other political committees in the largest such federal case in memory. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

Durkee's former clients have been in limbo because their campaign accounts were frozen as investigators tried to trace the money.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/