Brady Returns Check From Convicted Felon

WWeek:

<img src="http://www.wweek.com/portland/imgs/media.images/7771/news2-elieenbrady.t2.jpg"/>

Earlier this year, mayoral candidate <span>Eileen Brady</span> rejected a campaign contribution from former U.S. Sen. <span>Bob Packwood</span> (R-Ore.), who resigned office in 1995 over a sexual misconduct scandal. That was an awkward move, because Brady had personally solicited a contribution from Packwood's wife, the political consultant <span>Elaine Franklin</span>.

But while Packwood's money may not have been acceptable to Brady, her campaign disclosed on March 4 a $2,500 contribution from <span>Lawrence Mendelsohn</span>, a Southwest Portland investor who is a convicted felon.

If Mendelsohn's name is not immediately familiar to readers, it is more familiar federal law enforcement officials and <span>labor union leaders</span>. In the go-go 1990s and the early part of last decade, Mendelsohn was the business partner and top lieutenant to <span>Andy Wiederhorn,</span> who founded a Portland company called Wilshire Financial Services Group.

Wilshire got itself inextricably entangled with the now-defunct Portland pension fund manager <span>Capital Consultants</span>, LLC which carried out what has been termed the largest union pension-fund fraud in U.S. history.

Wiederhorn served time in federal prison after the Capital Consultants case unraveled, while Mendelsohn got a lighter punishment. Here's the federal Department of Labor's summary of his case:

"On May 24, 2004, in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, Lawrence Mendelsohn, co-founder of Wilshire Financial Services, was sentenced to 18 months supervised probation with six months to be served as home detention under electronic monitoring. Mendelsohn was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $105,454 in restitution. On November 21, 2003, Mendelsohn pled guilty to one count of filing a false income tax return. His conviction resulted from an investigation into the dissolution of Capital Consultants, LLC (CCL). <span>CCL clients lost over $350 million, most of which came from union pension funds</span>."

On Monday, Brady http://wweek.com/portland/wcp.v4/index2.phptold <span>WW</span> she was unaware of Mendelsohn's conviction.

"I didn't know that," she says<span>.</span> "Is it some kind of white-collar thing?"

She has asked her campaign staff to investigate.


<span>Updated at 3:05 pm:</span>

Brady says she will return Mendelsohn's check. "I'm sending his check back," she says. "It's the right thing to do."

<span>Updated at 11:29 am on March 6:</span>

Filings show Brady returned the check on March 5.

<span>Learn more about the cash behind the campaigns at our </span>PDX Votes Campaign Finance<span> page.</span>

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