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Embattled city Comptroller John Liu’s campaign donations plummeted by half amid a federal probe into his fund-raising practices, according to a report released last night.
Meanwhile, his campaign expenses skyrocketed because of hefty legal fees.
Liu has raised $550,000 in donations since July of last year, but about $41,000 that was collected was returned.
That’s down from the $993,815 he raised during the first half of 2011.
Liu spent $324,823, with the lion’s share of expenses used to cover the legal costs to respond to the federal investigation.
The campaign only spent $50,833 during the first half of last year.
Friends of John Liu paid $128,450 to former state Attorney General Robert Abrams’ law firm, Stroock & Stroock.
Liu had tapped Abrams to conduct an independent review into suspicions that Liu’s campaign was improperly collecting $800 donations from low-income workers like dish washers.
Liu suspended the Abrams inquiry after Xing Wu “Oliver” Pan was busted by the feds in November for allegedly funneling contributions to the comptroller’s campaign through “straw” donors.
Liu also dished out at least another $15,000 to Paul Schectman of Zuckerman & Spaeder, who is helping the campaign respond to the federal investigation.
Legal fees were also paid out to attorney Martin Aldeman and election lawyer Martin Connor.
The Liu campaign released a list of 59 bundlers, who collect donations and organized fund-raisers for the comptroller going back more than a year.
Pan, who was charged with wire fraud, was one of the bundlers mentioned. The campaign returned the $15,100 Pan had collected to the federal government.
Other bundlers include Queens Republican Councilman Peter Koo, Assembywoman Grace Meng (D-Queens) and Jian Li Hou, father of campaign treasurer Jenny Hou.
Liu campaign spokesman George Artz acknowledged the federal probe had impacted fund-raising.
“We focused with complying with the federal investigation,” Arzt said.
He said the campaign raised most of its funds in the past few weeks.