Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Testimony: Stupak was money man

Gaming entrepreneur Bob Stupak was never mentioned in the indictment returned two weeks ago against Las Vegas Councilwoman Janet Moncrief.

But according to grand jury testimony made public Tuesday, Stupak bankrolled Moncrief's bid for office in 2003 and lined up consultants to help with her controversial victory.

"When some bills needed to be paid, he'd (Stupak) call me over to a casino and sometimes pay me in cash, sometimes he'd pay me in chips," Moncrief campaign strategist Tony Dane told the grand jury, which voted Aug. 5 to indict the councilwoman.

Former Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Miller testified that at Stupak's request he began work as a consultant to Moncrief's campaign with the promise he would be paid $25,000 if she won.

"I was asked by a friend of mine, Bob Stupak, to assist him in obtaining public office for his girlfriend, as he described her," said Miller, who told the grand jury he never got the $25,000.

Dane's and Miller's work accounted for about $65,000 in contributions or expenditures the state alleges went unreported during Moncrief's successful bid to unseat incumbent Michael McDonald. The councilwoman faces four counts of filing false campaign reports and one count of perjury.

"It appears he (Stupak) made some monetary contributions to the campaign; at this point I would be only speculating how much," Senior Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen said. Regarding Stupak's absence from the indictment, Hafen said candidates are responsible for the workings of their campaigns.

Stupak did not return a call for comment Tuesday.

Moncrief, in her first public remarks on the case since her indictment, said she will fight the charges and remain in office to serve her constituents.

"I'm innocent," she said Tuesday. "I hope it (the case) moves forward very, very quickly."

The councilwoman, who is scheduled to appear for arraignment Sept. 8, referred questions to her attorney, Richard Wright. He said he expects his client will enter a plea of innocent on the five charges.

Political consultant Jim Ferrence, who first alleged Moncrief was concealing Stupak's funding of her campaign in an April 2003 complaint with the secretary of state, said Tuesday that Moncrief should explain where the money came from.

"A lot of people poked fun at me for using the word conspiracy," said Ferrence, who was McDonald's campaign adviser in the 2003 race. "But that's still the missing piece of the puzzle: Who paid for it?"

The grand jury testimony made public Tuesday paints a portrait of a campaign spending money fast and loose, and with little concern for reporting the expenditures.

Dane said he oversaw Moncrief's door-to-door canvassing, mailings and automated phone dialing.

He said he was paid $40,000, but the amount never appears as either an in-kind contribution or a payment on Moncrief's campaign finance reports.

While Dane identifies Stupak as the source of much of the campaign's funding, Dane's testimony does not indicate whether money changed hands in Moncrief's presence. When asked whether Moncrief was aware of Stupak's financial involvement in the campaign, he replied, "I don't know."

Among the expenses prosecutors allege the campaign did not report was about $50,000 spent at Zignature International, a Las Vegas print and mail shop owned by Gerald Wolkon.

Wolkon told the grand jury he billed the councilwoman $78,500 for his work. Looking over 11 invoices, he said the bills were for work done for Moncrief and billed to her.

"The first checks that I got were from a campaign checking account, but then she retained an accountant," Wolkon told the grand jury. "There was about a $30,000 balance that they owed, so checks for $10,000 came every month, month and a half, until it was paid."

But Moncrief's campaign finance reports account for only $28,000 in payments to Zignature International.

Regarding the finance reports, Miller testified he had "made up" some of the figures that appeared on them.

The former councilman said he went to Stupak's home on April 1, 2003, to help prepare Moncrief's first finance report.

"My assumption was that it (the report) had been ready and prepared for some time and that it had been filled in as contributions and expenses," Miller testified. "I looked at this document, and I realized it had never been completed though it had been signed in advance by the candidate, Janet Moncrief."

Miller said that as he drove to City Hall in his truck, campaign aide and longtime Stupak employee Betty Schulte "filled in the numbers based on the numbers I picked out of the air, and that's what those numbers are." Miller said he later told Moncrief what had been done.

Schulte, whose testimony before the grand jury preceded Miller's, told of no such incident.

"As I remember, she was out of town, and it had to be filed, so she asked me to submit it for her, so I did," Schulte said.

Moncrief provided the information for subsequent filings and "had all the information" on her campaign finances, Schulte said.

Schulte admitted she signed Moncrief's name on several of the finance reports. State officials have said the perjury charge against Moncrief stems from the only finance report that bears Moncrief's signature.

"I questioned whether or not I should be doing that, and they said it didn't really matter because everything would be taken care of in the third report where everything came at a final close," Schulte testified.

Coronado High School senior Jenna DiMartini helped organize groups of as many as 28 teen walkers who went door-to-door for Moncrief's campaign, but whose pay was underreported or never accounted for.

The walkers worked six or seven hours a day and on one occasion 10 hours, receiving $4.50 an hour with bonuses that often pushed it to $7 an hour, said DiMartini, who earned more than $1,000 working on the campaign.

When it was time to pay the walkers, Dane would go to a bank or a casino and pull out cash, she said.

"And this was all paid from the Janet Moncrief campaign, is that correct?" she was asked during her testimony.

"Yes sir," DiMartini replied.