The treasurer for an unsuccessful Brooklyn borough president candidate faces federal charges for a failed straw donor scheme to trick the city Campaign Finance Board out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in public matching funds.
Erlene King, 71, who worked on the 2021 primary campaign of Democrat Anthony Jones, is in plea negotiations after she was charged with wire fraud Wednesday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
King is accused of trying to take advantage of the city’s 8-to-1 matching campaign funds program by submitting to Jones’ campaign $25,000 in straw donations, along with five corresponding “fictitious records,” in the hopes of getting $400,000 in matching funds. The Campaign Finance Board noticed something fishy and denied the matching funds.
On Wednesday, King pleaded not guilty to a “criminal information” finding after waiving an indictment. That typically signals a defendant’s willingness to plead guilty on the spot, though Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Silverberg said at the hearing that plea negotiations would likely continue for 30 to 60 days.
King used money-transfer apps like Cash App to send money to the supposed donors, then asked them, in turn, to make $175 donations to the campaign, the feds allege.
The feds laid out several of these transactions in a court filing Wednesday. On May 11, 2021, she sent one person $1,100 and a second person $540, telling that second person in a message, “Contribute … for me 175×3 ppl 180 each,” according to the feds.
She paid another would-be contributor $1,700 on June 26, 2021, the feds allege. Three days later, that contributor wrote in an Instagram message to yet another prospective donor, “I need to contribute to this guy’s election but since [I] don’t live in [Brooklyn] I can’t directly contribute. So I’m giving my [Brooklyn] friend the money to donate for me. If [I] can give you 175 to donate to his campaign that would help me out a lot[.]”
King, who was released on her own recognizance, returns to court Oct. 30. She declined comment Wednesday.
Her lawyer John Wallenstein called the allegations “old news” from the 2021 Brooklyn borough president campaign, but declined to comment further.
Jones came in eighth in a field of 12 primary candidates, getting just 3% of the vote and losing to Antonio Reynoso, who won the general election that November. Jones ran on the Rent is 2 Damn High line in the general election, and got 2.7% of the vote.
His campaign still owes more than $720,000 in debt, public records show. He raised about $83,000 in donations, but spent more than $810,000, Campaign Finance Board filings show.
Jones, who is not charged with a crime, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
In a November 2021 hearing, Jones tried to challenge that denial, telling the Campaign Finance Board, “I’m concerned. I’m a little confused … I believe that everything that we were asked to do about the campaign, we did it … I believe that my treasurer did follow the rules.”
The CFB’s counsel, Joseph Gallagher, said that the board denied the matching funds after finding “28 non-credible signatures on affirmation statements.”
King said she sent field staff out to gather signatures affirming donations, and blamed problems with those signatures on COVID-19, suggesting that donors’ signatures might have changed as a result of the pandemic’s effects.
“I would never have submitted a signature I knew was not correct,” she said. “I would never have done that.”
