With supporters like this, Comptroller John Liu doesn’t need enemies.
The feds say a Liu fund-raiser charged with scheming to violate campaign-finance laws has revealed that the comptroller’s 2013 campaign failed to identify a “bundler” who raised some $10,000.
It’s the latest allegation of illegality to hit Liu’s campaign.
Manhattan federal prosecutors say Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan disclosed last month that a 2010 federal wiretap, made available to the defense, caught Liu and then-campaign treasurer Mei Hua Ru discussing a $10,000 contribution by a “Victor Chung.”
The feds had believed that Chung’s contribution was illegal because it exceeded the $4,950 limit on individual donations. Pan, however, insisted Chung’s money came from several separate donors.
The feds say Chung’s money was dirty either way, because election officials hadn’t been told he was a bundler.
That “suggests either that the $10,000 was an illegal contribution . . . or at least that the campaign was engaging in a different violation . . . by concealing the identity of an intermediary,” prosecutors wrote in court papers, filed yesterday.
Liu’s campaign lawyer, Paul Shechtman, said: “In July of 2010, when this conversation occurred, there was no city (campaign-finance) reporting requirement because the city was between election cycles, and the state did not require the reporting of intermediaries.”
“The government’s investigation would be on sounder footing if someone there knew the election law,” he added.