Ami Bera's Father Is Going To Jail For Campaign Finance Fraud-- What About Patrick Murphy's Parents?

Mastermind of DCCC corruption: Steve Israel... with the useful idiot

I'm in the middle of an intense investigation of how sleazy Republican Justin Fareed from Santa Barbara is funding his congressional campaign from just a few wealthy families with very special interests involving the healthcare industry. The investigation is still on-going but, basically, Fareed has taken in over $180,000 from eight families representing four healthcare 
companies, particularly the Kolodny family-- all of whose adult members have declared bankruptcy in the past as a way of escaping debts-- who are first-time political donors but have maxed out to Fareed for over $40,000. They run controversial nursing homes in Maywood and Oxnard. Fareed is a Republican with a distinct penchant towards corrupt practices but Republicans have by no means cornered the market on political corruption.

Just as I was researching the Fareed case, the Sacramento Bee reported on the outcome of a 2 year old campaign finance fraud case involving a bunch of crooked conservative Democrats, each one of them just as shady as Fareed. DWT started working on that case 2 years ago this week.

Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton reported yesterday that the father of crooked Congressman Ami Bera, a right-wing Democrat cut loose by unions, progressives and reformers, "has been charged with two counts of campaign finance violations and is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday to enter a plea in the case... as an 'arraignment and change of plea' hearing, which typically means a defendant has agreed to a guilty plea." And he did. The court in Sacramento and The Bee focused on Ami Bera, the crooked local congressman, although it appears that the Sacramento U.S. Attorney went nowhere near the case and it was handled out of the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, which indicates that Patrick Murphy and his parents could well be next. Bera insinuated he didn't know about how his father was gaming the system although it was a scheme hatched by Steve Israel at the DCCC and also involved the parents of several other corrupt right-wing Democrats, particularly Patrick Murphy (FL), Kevin Strauss (PA), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY) and Ann Callis (IL).

Babulal Bera, whose son faces a re-election battle against Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, was charged with making excessive campaign contributions and making contributions in the name of another person.

...The charges filed Monday night allege that, beginning in 2009, Bera contributors gave at least $235,000 to a campaign committee in Elk Grove, and that Babulal Bera later caused the contributions to be illegally refunded.

Those contributors “received full or partial reimbursements for their contributions in the form of funds that originated from the defendant (Babulal Bera), either from the defendant directly or through third parties working at the defendant’s behest,” court documents state.

The charging document also alleges that Babulal Bera and his wife “directly and indirectly solicited relatives, friends and acquaintances to make the maximum allowable federal campaign contributions” to a campaign committee, “knowing that his personal money would be used to advance funds to, or reimburse these individuals for the contributions they made.”

This was designed, according to the charging document, to avoid limitations federal law imposes on the amount an individual is allowed to give a congressional candidate in a single election cycle.

The contributions came in between Jan. 31, 2011, and Dec. 5, 2011, and totaled about $43,400, the documents state.

From April 26, 2011, through June 9, 2012, “these contributors received full or partial reimbursements for their contributions in the form of funds that originated from the defendant” or from third parties working on his behalf, the documents state.

Babulal Bera faces up to five years on each of the two felony counts and fines of at least $250,000.

Ami Bera threw his dad under the bus, same way he threw his constituents under the bus

Babulal sent two checks to Patrick Murphy, totaling $5,000, dated June 27, 2015, all part of Steve Israel's ruse to have the wealthy parents of his right-wing, anti-progressive candidates avoid campaign finance laws by illegally trading contributions. Patrick's criminally-minded mother sent a check to Bera's campaign on March 5, 2013 for $5,200 while his crooked father Thomas Murphy (the Trump partner) sent two checks to Kevin Strouse on June 26, 2013 totaling $5,200-- all while Thomas and Leslie Murphy had been sending tens of thousands of dollars to Republican party organizations from Vermont and Massachusetts to Oklahoma and Idaho and to Republican candidates like George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

The plea bargain seems to have guaranteed that Babulal would serve no more than 30 months in prison rather than the 46 to 57 months that would be normal under the Federal Sentencing Guideline for the 2 counts he plead guilty to. Israel hasn't been indicted but there have been rumors that he was forced to announce his retirement from Congress over this and other similar illegal schemes. And, so far, the Murphy family hasn't been investigated for their role in the same behavior Babulal Bera will soon be in prison for. They provided "a thing of value" (campaign contributions to Bera) in return for Babulal making a campaign contribution to Patrick Murphy. It would seem more fitting to go after the two corrupt politicians as well as their parents, but congressmen routinely get away with almost anything. Bera has no primary opponent but, fortunately, Murphy, does: Alan Grayson. You can help Grayson defeat Murphy and his family's sordid brand of corrupt politics by clicking on the thermometer: