Mike Crites (R)
Richard Cordray (D)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline)-The Republican candidate for Ohio attorney general filed an ethics complaint Friday against state Treasurer Richard Cordray, his Democratic opponent, alleging he accepted an illegal campaign contribution.
Republican Mike Crities, a former U.S. attorney, announced earlier this week he would file the complaint against Cordray, who allegedly knowingly accepted a $10,000 contribution from a state contractor whose wife made the contribution in the name of his daughter.
"At best, the revelations of the past week present a strong appearance of impropriety," Crites said in a statement Friday. "At worst, Richard Cordray has violated the law in his quest to be the state's top lawyer. Either way, Ohioans deserve better from their next attorney general."
In its complaint to the Ohio Elections Commission, Crites alleges that Cordray accepted the $10,000 contribution from Lindsey Kuty, the daughter of Montford Will, a bond trader doing business with the State Treasurer's office.
Kuty, 25, made the contribution less than two weeks after Cordray took office as state treasurer.
Ohio state campaign finance laws prohibit giving campaign contributions in someone else's name. Ohio law also bars state contractors and their spouses from contributing more than a combined total of $2,000 in any 24-month period.
Breaking the contribution story, the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News reported that not long after Kuty's contribution, Will's firm - Wachovia Securities - went from doing less than one percent of the state treasurer's bond trading business to 37.5 percent.
From Legal Newsline: Reach reporter Chris Rizo at chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.