She filed a financial disclosure form that suggests she may not have had enough assets to legally provide the money she supplied to her campaign, and her father ended up furnishing the cash that paid off campaign bills.
That may sound like the problems Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz, R-Utah, had with her 1994 election bid. But it was also the case two years earlier and was arranged without the financial involvement of her estranged husband, Joe.Of course, Enid in recent weeks has blamed her personal and campaign finance problems - including possible violation of federal election laws - on fraud by Joe. The new revelation, however, shows she was the architect in 1992 of a situation similar to the 1994 problems but on a smaller scale.
The similarity in Enid's two campaigns emerged after a close review of Waldholtz's 1992 cam-paign and personal financial disclosure forms by the Deseret News.
In the 1992 race - which Waldholtz lost to former Rep. Karen Shepherd, D-Utah, before beating her in a 1994 rematch - Waldholtz reported that she loaned her campaign about a third of what it spent, or $155,000 of $444,657 paid.
The trouble is: At that time - before she married Joe Waldholtz, a once-purported millionaire - she reported her personal assets to be worth only between $288,012 and $706,000.
That means the $155,000 she loaned to her campaign was somewhere between 23 percent and 54 percent of her total assets.
But according to her forms, she didn't have assets that were liquid enough to provide that large amount of cash loaned.
The only asset she had that was large enough to generate that kind of money was the large Greene family home in Federal Heights - which property records show her father, D. Forrest Greene, had given her in 1986 as an early inheritance.
The way she and her father used the home to provide money for the 1992 campaign raise questions about whether they may have violated federal donation and loan limits for candidates.
Enid acknowledged through spokeswoman LaDonna Lee, president of the Eddie Mahe Co., that "during the 1992 campaign, she sold the house (to her father, who had given it to her) to help fund her campaign."
Peter Valcarce, who managed her 1992 campaign, said Enid's parents had tried living in a condominium for a while, didn't like it, and wanted to move back - which is when Forrest offered to buy back the home at 1456 Penrose Drive. Enid and her parents then lived in the house until she married Joe Waldholtz in August 1993 and the couple moved into a new home - listed in Enid's name only - in the Cottonwood area.
Lee said the Penrose home was appraised and sold during the 1992 campaign for fair market value. Enid's financial disclosure forms in 1992 said that value was between $250,001 and $500,000. County records show that in 1995 the house, for tax purposes, was valued at $319,500.
However, Salt Lake County property records raise some questions about the timing of the transactions - and whether they were proper and properly reported.
For example, Enid did not pay off a $70,000 mortgage she had taken out on the home in 1986 (to pay off the portion of the home's original cost that her parents had not yet retired) until April 14, 1993 - more than five months after the election, before which she said the sale had occurred.
Also, property records show the title of the home was never transferred back to Forrest from Enid until June 20, 1994 - or well into the 1994 campaign, and nearly a year after Enid had married Joe Waldholtz and moved into another home.
That suggests Enid still held title to the home officially, but she did not list it in later financial disclosure forms as among assets she held beginning Jan. 1, 1993. Not transferring title also could mean that Forrest's payments to Enid were technically a loan backed by a real asset, and loans are strictly regulated by FEC law.
All that raises questions about whether a valid, arms-length sale had occurred when Forrest gave Enid the money for her 1992 campaign.
Federal Election Commission officials who were questioned about that arrangement say they do not know if it was legal - or if it may have violated laws that limit loans and donations to candidates by individuals to no more than $1,000 per election.
FEC spokesman Ian Stirton said that restriction also applies to parents, with some loopholes. "For example, if a parent had given a child $25,000 a year for a decade before they became a candidate, that pattern had long been established and continuing it would be OK.
"But if a parent decides to give or loan a child $100,000 now that they are a candidate, that would not be allowed," he said.
Stirton said a situation where a parent buys back a home he had previously given a child to provide the cash the candidate uses in a campaign is a gray enough area that Federal Election Commission would have to decide if it is proper or an illegal attempt to make an end-run around donation limits.
Valcarce said he believes the arrangement was legal, however, "because the inheritance came along (in 1986) before she even thought about running for Congress. And her mother really did want to move back, and it just happened to be a good way for her to cash in on her equity."
Lee also said Waldholtz "believes it was done in compliance with federal election laws and regulations."
Enid would later forgive the $155,000 in loans to her 1992 campaign - plus another $15,000 she loaned to her 1994 race. She forgave $90,000 of it April 1994, and the other $80,000 in September 1994 - essentially converting the $170,000 total in loans into a donation.
In the 1994 race, Enid would report donating $1.8 million of her own money. While she has said she believed that came from legal sources, it may also have come from up to $4 million provided by her father to Joe in loans and asset swaps (for trust funds that did not exist) or from money Joe's family suspects he may have embezzled from his grandmother's estate.
That situation has made the source of that $1.8 million a key question. The 1992 situation may also now make key from where the $155,000 she provided that year.
Of interest, Enid's 1992 campaign also had at least one problem with an overdrafted check too, which the Deseret News also reported at the time. Overdrafts later became a major problems for the Waldholtzes in both their personal and 1994 campaign finances.
The 1992 overdraft came after Enid had blasted former Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, for bouncing dozens of checks at the now defunct House bank. But at least one overdraft by her own campaign was discovered that year when a $10 service charge to cover it was listed in disclosure forms.
"It was just for one check," Valcarce told the newspaper at the time. "I'm not sure what it was for, but it seems like it was a check to a staff member."
He added, "We don't justify it other than to say we had some staff problems and changes were made." That is about the time that Joe Waldholtz joined the campaign as its treasurer.
Deseret News staff writer Marianne Funk contributed to this report.