Chicago, IL. (ECWd) –
The State Board of Elections held a hearing to iron out Frank Mautino’s campaign committee’s apparent refusal/inability to amend their past filings as previously directed by the Board. We first broke this story in January of 2016 in this article.
This hearing was not to determine if the campaign misspent any of its funds, it was only to determine why the campaign had not as of yet complied with amending their expenditure filings.
During this hearing, it was revealed that Frank Mautino pled the fifth to avoid “self-incrimination” – the campaign routinely wrote checks, cashed them, allegedly paid for campaign-related expenses with cash, sometimes never providing receipts, and never returning any of the funds given them in cash – the campaign claims it allowed workers to fill up their cars at Happy’s Service Station by putting it on a running tab, the campaign would then pay the service station without accounting for who made the purchases.
Many of the payments to Spring Valley Bank were for cash. The campaign (Mautino) would sign a check for a certain dollar amount and simply cash the check and allegedly use the cash for campaign-related matters.
Both parties are to provide written responses to the hearing officer by May 1st for the officer to then type his opinion and deliver to the Board of Elections in time for their meeting on May 15, 2017. If this happens on time, the regular meeting should consider the complaint and render a decision.
At the 41.15 mark of the video, you can here where the Attorney for David Cook, the person who filed the complaint on Mautino’s campaign, shares the fact that Mautino has, in fact, pled the fifth.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act request today for copies of all the exhibits that were presented at this public hearing to include the deposition record of the campaign treasure. We will update this story when we get those records or in the event, new information comes to light.
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