Portland Auditor Receives Final Payment from Publicly Funded Elections Scam

WWeek:

<img src="http://www.wweek.com/portland/imgs/media.images/20049/boyles.t2.jpg"/>

One of the darkest and most unintentionally hilarious chapters in recent City of Portland political history has come to close, with the repayment of monies owed the city from a scam perpetrated during the 2006 election season.

Back in those more innocent times, city council candidates could qualify for public funding for their campaigns if they obtained the requisite number of signatures.

In the 2006 primary, a little-known candidate named Emilie Boyles surprised political observers by gathering 1,000 $5 contributions. As WW first reported, there was something usual about Boyles' supporters—95 percent of them came from the former Soviet Union.

"I'm very popular in the Slavic community," Boyles told WW at the time.

As required under the rules of publicly-funded elections, the city then gave her $145,000 to run a campaign. Some of her expenditures—paying her 16-year-old daughter $15,000, for example—set off alarms.

Boyles and the man who'd gathered signatures for her, Volodymyr Golovan, both pleaded guilty to violating elections laws but have now satisfied their obligations to the city, according to the auditor's office.

Voters pulled the plug on publicly-financed city elections in 2010.

Here's the release from the city:

The Auditor’s Office recently received $76,434.99 as payment toward a judgment issued in November 2006 by Multnomah County Circuit Court, in the matter of City v. Boyles. That case arose from violations of Portland's since-repealed Campaign Finance Fund program, in which Emilie Boyles, a former candidate for city commissioner, was ordered to repay roughly $145,000.
 
The recent payment was received from Volodymyr Golovan, one of Boyles’s signature gatherers, who was convicted of state elections violations in a separate case. Golovan made the payment as part of a pending post-conviction appeal settlement.
 
As a result of the payment, there is no remaining balance owed to the city from the Campaign Finance Fund distribution to Boyles. Civil penalties, court costs, and accrued interest remain outstanding in the case.

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