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City Comptroller John Liu’s fund-raising for the 2013 mayoral race is under federal scrutiny, but records show that his 2009 run for his current office may have crossed the line — by reporting that only a pittance of the $3.9 million he raised was solicited by outsiders.
His so-called intermediaries are under the spotlight because the feds recently indicted one, Oliver Pan, for allegedly funneling $16,000 to Liu through straw donors. The most Pan could have given legally was $4,950.
A Post review of Campaign Finance Board filings found that Liu claimed 80 of his 5,443 contributors were rounded up by six intermediaries. The 5,363 others supposedly wrote checks on their own, maybe after hearing the candidate speak or seeing him on TV.
“That defies belief,” said a Democrat who’s been in several campaigns. “I think it’s impossible.”
With strict campaign-finance rules limiting individual donations, the source added, it usually takes large chunks of money collected by intermediaries to raise as much as Liu did.
A Liu spokesman declined comment.
The campaign laws, tightened a few years ago, require that anyone who asks for a contribution be listed as an intermediary, or bundler.
“The disclosure of such persons will help prevent the perception . . . that such individuals or entities have a higher level of influence on and access to the city’s elected officials,” the Campaign Finance Board declared in 2008.
Intermediaries must attest they didn’t reimburse any contributors, under penalty of felony charges.
Liu has raised $4.4 million in successful runs for the City Council in 2001, ’03 and ’05 and for comptroller in ’09. He reported that a total of just $30,262 was rounded up by bundlers.
Since then, he’s taken in $1.5 million for what is widely assumed to be a mayoral run in 2013. But, as of July, he’d refused to release a list of his biggest boosters. Sources say the list, just now being compiled, will be issued “imminently.”
A loophole in the city campaign-finance law imposes no penalty and sets no deadline for the reporting of intermediaries. Yet a Liu ally believes the law is open to interpretation.
He noted that Liu 2009 rival David Weprin reported no intermediaries. A spokesman insisted that Weprin “fully complied” with the law but did not explain how it was possible that not one dollar of the $2.5 million he took in was solicited by someone outside his campaign.
Two others, ex-Council members Melinda Katz and David Yassky, each reported at least 10 times the intermediary activity that Liu did. Yassky raised $2.9 million, $283,775 bundled. Katz took in $2.6 million, $342,495 via intermediaries.