Rep. Enid Waldholtz, R-Utah, is asking the Federal Election Commission to force her estranged husband, Joe, to repay nearly $2 million she says he either funneled from illegal sources into her 1994 campaign, or stole from it.
She filed a complaint with the FEC Friday at the same time she filed amended campaign disclosure forms that officially detail scores of violations her accountants found. She did not publicly release all those documents - 1,025 pages worth - until Monday.To emphasize that Enid blames all problems on Joe, her FEC complaint asks that he be forced to repay "all committee funds he embezzled and illegally commingled with personal funds" when he was her treasurer, which it said amounts to at least $91,957.
Also Enid asked the FEC to make Joe repay $1.82 million that her father, D. Forrest Greene, loaned to him but which she says Joe funneled into her campaign without their knowledge. She said her campaign committees would then refund that money to Greene.
Even if the FEC ordered such repayments, it appears unlikely that Joe has assets even remotely large enough to cover them.
For example, in a court hearing last November on whether Joe should be released after voluntarily surrendering to the FBI, a judge ruled he posed little flight risk in part because he appeared to be nearly broke, according to assets he then listed.
Joe, who had posed as a multimillionaire but who is now living with his parents in Pittsburgh, did not return Deseret News phone calls Monday seeking his reaction.
Enid also took the unusual step in her complaint to ask the FEC to audit her own campaign accounts - which her own accountants and lawyers have been rebuilding for months.
She said that is needed because she does not have legal access to several personal bank accounts Joe used - but the FEC could use its subpoena power to go through them. Without access to such accounts, she said she cannot guarantee accuracy of her amended disclosure forms.
Those forms revealed numbers Monday that were close, but slightly different, to amounts she had outlined earlier.
For example, she says now that more than $2 million was illegally funneled into her 1994 campaign (she says she has not had time to reaudit her 1992 campaign yet).
She said that includes $1.75 million Joe transferred to the campaign from their personal accounts (covered mostly with loans from Greene), and another $300,000 Joe paid from personal funds directly to vendors (covered in part with loans from Greene and other sources).
While Enid and her father have said they did not know loans went to cover campaign expenses, at least one of the individual loans Greene made - for $30,871 on Feb. 23, 1995 - was for exactly the amount Enid's committee paid the same day to a consultant, the Eddie Mahe Co.
That company is still handling public relations for Enid and is from where Enid released her complaint and amended campaign documents on Monday.
The new reports show Enid received far less in legal donations than originally listed. For example, the original 1994 year-end report said she had $2.15 million in contributions that year. New forms show only $285,732 of that was legal.
Old, original forms prepared by Joe also greatly overstated how much money Enid had in bank accounts, according to the new reports.
For example at the end of 1994, original forms claimed cash on hand of $224,250. In fact, it was $43,062 in the hole. At the same time, the original form said Enid's campaign had $4,786 in debts - but it actually had at least $110,132.
The reports also list two instances when Enid acknowledges endorsing or writing checks that may have been used improperly.
On one in 1993, Joe wrote a campaign check to Enid for $1,000. Accountants wrote that Enid thought it was to reimburse her for two $500 campaign expenses she had paid herself earlier - but accountants said the check was not disclosed at all on original FEC forms.
On another in 1995, Enid's forms now say she wrote a $4,000 check to a campaign vendor - which also had not been disclosed in the original forms. She said now it was an "unreimbused advance." Auditors noted it should have been reimbursed within 30 days and reported.
New forms allege that Joe embezzled money in several ways, including depositing donations into his personal accounts, writing campaign account checks payable to cash or to himself or to Enid without her knowledge and transferring money to accounts in the names of relatives.