Chris Campos' ELEC Mysteries


Why is Chris Campos opening a campaign account in August 2015 for a run-off election that took place 8 years ago? 



This is a new campaign (bank) account. 

Campos' 2007 campaign bank accounts were reported as follows:
  • Municipal election:  On April 2, 2007, "Friends to Re-Elect Christopher Campos" filed a D-1 form to open PNC Bank Account # 8033661071. His Campaign Treasurer was Marilyn Monrroy.  
  • General election:  On October 7, 2007, "Friends to Re-Elect Christoper Campos" filed a D-1 form to open Commerce Bank Account  # 3453197453.  His Campaign Treasurer was Theresa LaBruno. 
8 years pass....
  • Runoff election:  On August 21, 2015, "Friends to Re-Elect Christoper Campos" filed a D-1 form to open TD Bank North, Account # 4313068151.  The Campaign Treasurer for the TD Bank account is "candidate" Christopher Campos. 
More...  

In 2015, Campos filed fourteen ELEC reports (R-1s, Amendments) for his 2007 Municipal and 2007 Runoff elections, none for the General.  They are highlighted in yellow below. 



All of the retroactive reports correspond to Campos' PNC account  ( # 8033661071.)

No reports have (yet) been filed for Campos' 'new' TD Bank North account ( # 4313068151.)

GA is being generous to say say Campos' 2015 retroactive ELEC reports are a mess.  For the time being, GA will keep it simple.

Note,Campos is amending BOTH campaign accounts on the same dates.  All deposits and disbursements date back to 2007. 

Follow the numbers.

CHRISTOPHER CAMPOS' 2015 ELEC REPORTS

2007 MUNICIPAL-- 11 DAY PRE-ELECTION REPORT  
  • 2008 closing balance was $11,930  (filed April 24, 2008)
  • 2015 opening balance $5,970, deposits $10,350, disbursements $18,630, closing balance $-2,310. (filed June 29, 2015)
  • 2015 opening balance $5970, deposits $9,100, disbursements $15,070, closing balance $0 (filed August 4, 2015)

2007 MUNICIPAL-- 20 DAY POST-ELECTION REPORT  
  • 2008 closing balance was $11,930  (filed April 24, 2008)
  • 2015 opening balance $-2310, deposits $44,700, disbursements $42,390, closing balance $0 (filed June 29, 2015)
2007 RUNOFF-- 11 DAY PRE-ELECTION REPORT  
  • 2008 closing balance was $8,075.77 (filed April 28, 2008)
  • 2015 opening balance $0, funds transferred from prior campaign $13,499.39, deposits $10,000, disbursements $16,473.32, closing balance $7,025.77 (filed June 29, 2015)
  • 2015 opening balance $0, funds transferred from prior campaign $6,879.15, deposits $59,700, disbursements, disbursements $56,903.38, closing balance $10,775.77  (filed August 10, 2015)
  • 2015 opening balance $0, funds transferred from prior campaign $6,879.15, deposits $59,700, disbursements, disbursements $56,903.38, closing balance $10,775.77  (filed September 11, 2015*)
*same  report filed on August 10, 2015

2007 RUNOFF-- 20 DAY POST-ELECTION REPORT  
  • 2008 closing balance was $3,849.93 (filed April 28, 2008)
  • 2015 opening balance $7,025.77, deposits $40,100, disbursements $47,125.77, closing balance $0 (filed June 29, 2015)
  • 2015 opening balance $10,775.77, deposits $42,100.00, disbursements $52,875.77 closing balance $0 (filed August 4, 2015)

According to Campos' ELECs filed in 2015, enormous amounts of money are moving through Campos' 2007 campaign account.  The account is zeroed out several times in one reporting cycle.

During this time period, Chris Campos was serving as outgoing Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia's Chief of Staff.

During this time period (June through September 2015) was Hoboken's municipal campaign season.

During this time period Carmelo Garcia was spending extravagantly on his municipal campaign, but to- date has not filed ELEC reports showing deposits and disbursements for Garcia for Council.  

So many ELEC mysteries! 

One thing is NOT mysterious: both the 2007 candidate, Chris Campos, and his Treasurer, Marilyn Monrroy, certified the truth and accuracy of the 2015 amended filings.

CERTIFICATIONS

2007 MUNICIPAL-- 11 DAY PRE-ELECTION 




2007 RUNOFF-- 11 DAY PRE-ELECTION 



Comments

  1. Uh oh!!! I hope the recent visitors to the site take notice!

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  2. Very odd indeed...

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  3. A 2015 bank account to re elect Chris Campos for a Hoboken race that ended 8 years ago and Campos doesn't live in Hoboken! What was the bank account for???? Come back feds!!!

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  4. WOW! GA is the best reporter in town (or county), great digging GA!!

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  5. Further proof of what a toothless "enforcer" the ELEC is. Just make sure the form is signed, don't bother doing a sniff test in the contents.

    Now why would all that money be moving around in a dead campaign while best buddy Carmelo is busy running an especially dirty live campaign?

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  6. Jeez that's a ton of money washing through.

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    1. Carmelo, do you know where the $$$ came from?

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  7. He wasn't even living in Hoboken for at least the past 5 years
    Sleaze bag was either trying to run, cover up past misdeeds or run from the law or maybe all 3

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  8. Wow I never waited that long to do my um, laundry.

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  9. smells like something mighty shady was going on. not that carmelo garcia has ANYTHING to do with it.

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  10. Dirty little secrets
    Dirty little lies
    We got our dirty little fingers
    In everybody's pie
    We love to cut you down to size
    We love dirty laundry.

    Don Henley

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  11. Campos has an unresolved ELEC complaint dating back to the 2007 campaign. These filings seem like an attempt to resolve some of the issues raised in the complaint.

    My guess is that Campos had to provided the information missing from his filings as part of settling out the complaint with a reduced fine, though its a mystery why he didn't just incorporate everything into a single updated filing.

    Since the complaint is still listed as officially open on the ELEC site, it doesn't seem like the new filings resolved all the outstanding issues with ELEC. With Campos's arrest those issues are likely to remain unresolved.

    I doubt any of this has anything to do with Garcia.

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    1. And it's not like you've ever been wrong before.

      Your explanation doesn't make sense. 14 reports? A new bank account filed for a 2007 election? Take a look at the inflows and outflows and zero balances for individual reporting periods. It sure looks like laundry.

      No one knows if the funny business has anything to do with Garcia.

      Campos ELEC complaint can be OPRAed.

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    2. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
      When first we practice to deceive.

      Sir Walter Scott

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  12. So Campos deposited and then disbursed over $50,000 in 2015 for an election in 2007? on what and to whom? Interesting.

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    1. According to the Elec report, no. These appear to be funds received in 2007 but likely not reported at the time.

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  13. Nancy what are the dates the campaign contributions were received? Were they in 2007 or 2015?

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    1. I can only tell you what was reported, don't know when they were actually received. All reported 2007- except for a few 2015 but those seem to be error.

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    2. I concur, I took a quick look at some of the 2015 filings and the activity I saw occurred in 2007. Contributions from Fitzgibbons and Camerano are very unlikely to be occurring now and the disbursements I scanned were election day workers.

      Unless there is something jumping out as 2015 activity this appears to be reporting past activity from the 2007 races. If you see something jumping out I'd like to take a look, just identify which report its on.

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  14. The ELEC complaint against Campos is available on the ELEC website - there's no need to OPRA it if anyone wants to take a look at it it's right there.

    GA's concerns based on the weirdness of a 2015 filing fora 2007 campaign are understandable but sometimes things are less than they seem.

    8 years later ELEC finally got Campos to file the information he was supposed to file in 2007.

    There is, however a big new question raised by his new filings, in addition to to what we already knew about paid workers and machine and developer money flooding into his campaign sometimes in excess of legal limits and sometimes wheeled in through an all star team of politicos like Maurice Fitzgibbons, Peter Cammarano, Albio Sires, Richard Turner and a host of out of town politicos with no obvious reason to give money to a Hoboken City Council candidate.

    He lists a "bank charge" of almost $8,000 to TD bank as the last disbursement entry on one of his filings to zero out the account. That's pretty unlikely so it raises the question - where did that money go?

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    1. I've looked at the complaints, and can post them.

      If your assumption that "8 years later ELEC finally got Campos to file the information he was supposed to file in 2007" is correct, it doesn't explain the 2015 filings, specifically the ballooning of deposits and expenditures reported. ELEC busted Campos and his Treasurer on late reporting, incomplete data fields (missing addresses, etc.) and accepting contributions over the limit.

      I can't assume the 2015 reports are (or are not) ONLY responsive to the ELEC complaints, if they are. IMO, it requires a forensic analysis to figure out. Not sure it's "less that it seems" particularly in light of the 2015 D-1 opening a TD Bank account for the 2007 runoff.

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    2. Which of the reports filed in 2015 has activity, contributions or disbursements, in 2015?

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    3. The only 2015 activity reported is the D-1 that opens the TD Bank account in August 2015.

      Have a look:
      http://www.elec.state.nj.us/ELECReport/SearchCandidate.aspx

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    4. Look at the dates on the deposits and expenditures GA. These are all 2007 transactions. The complaint didn't include the missing transactions because ELEC had no way of knowing about them when the complaints were filed. They needed to see his bank statements to find that stuff out. In responding to the complaint Campos would have to provide more info which would open up the issues regarding missing receipts and expenditures.

      The new D-1 is the only new filing that isn't an amendment of a 2007 or 2008 filing and the only filing that has any conceivable connection to 2015 financial transactions. The new 2007 expenditures and receipts (disclosed for the first time in the 2015 amendments) are testament to the level of fraud that Campos engaged in, raising questions about how much gets routinely left out of ELEC reporting by scummy politicians. But it has nothing to do with money flows in 2015.

      The best explanation I can think of for the new account (if indeed it is new and not just the filing of a missing D-1 for an old 2007 account) is that Campos was creating a vehicle to fund raise to pay his ELEC fine. I can't imagine anybody would give him any money for that but hope springs eternal.

      Maybe some of the money kicked back to him from the car scheme was funneled into that account. That seems far more likely to me than any connection to Hoboken's 2015 Council races.

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    5. Anon @ 10:46- we may be talking in circles. It is clear from my post and comments that I am aware all reporting shows 2007 dates, and the only 'new' activity reported is the TD Bank Account.

      I have only posted what is there. I have already said I cannot speculate. But you earlier referred to the complaints to explain the amendments. I looked at the complaints and found the 2015 amended ELECs to show starkly different numbers, and an ebb and flow of $. As for "money left out" it is a LOT of money left out. Why? I don't know. That in and of itself is curious.

      I have no idea what went on between Campos, Monrroy and ELEC. Just stating what is there. The complaints are still open, it seems.

      IMO, the head-scratcher is Campos opening up the campaign bank account in 2015 for the 2007 run-off.

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  15. Hector Torres JunyaMarch 22, 2016 at 10:27 AM

    As my family are long time residents of the fourth ward, I resent this focus on my former councilman and his campaign finances. Look, the spin cycle gets stuck, sometimes for many years but you have to launder the loot.

    You yuppies wouldn't understand anything about that. We have lots of activities here that make it hard to clean the proceeds of sales. We're experienced on laundering. Chris and Carmelo run an effective group of laundermats operating in the hood. The Feds will never get them.

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