Citizens for a New Delaware Way Calls on Lt. Governor Bethany Hall-Long to Resign and End Campaign for Governor after Devastating Report Revealed Unattributed Payments to Spouse
July 26 2024 - 12:16PM
Business Wire
Report identifies 109 unreported checks made to
Bethany Hall-Long’s spouse and treasurer Dana Long totalling nearly
$300,000 with $30,000 owed back to the campaign
Today, Citizens for a New Delaware Way is calling on Lt.
Governor Bethany Hall-Long to resign from her role based on the
deceitful use of campaign donations for personal benefit and the
careless reporting of campaign funds to her family. In a recently
revealed report, Jeffrey A. Lampinski, a Principal and Certified
Fraud Examiner at Forensic Litigation Consultants, LLC, with 25
years of experience in the FBI, found the “...Committee’s account
of expenditures in its public campaign finance reporting
incomplete, inconsistent, and often inaccurate, leading to an
unreliable picture of its financial affairs.”
The report detailed the Hall-Long Campaign blatantly ignoring
the law to use her elected office for personal gain. The findings
showed that the Hall-Longs owe the campaign more than $30,000 and
consistently used personal credit cards to garner flight, hotel and
travel points although the campaign could cover these expenses with
checks.
The investigation also noted that Dana Long had never read the
Delaware Elections Code through the eight years of investigation
into his work as campaign treasurer. The Hall-Long campaign issued
checks to Dana Long but publicly reported them as written to
someone else. During the investigation, when questioned, Long did
not answer why a $20,000 check was reported falsely to Buying Time
LLC when in fact the payee was Dana Long. Between 2016 and 2023,
109 checks totalling nearly $300,000 constituted a reportable
“expenditure” of the campaign but were never reported by the
Committee in campaign finance reports.
Keandra McDole, a social justice activist who has called for
equitable treatment and accountability throughout Delaware’s
elected leaders stated:
“There couldn’t be a more clear example of the double standard
that exists in Delaware for white, wealthy leaders versus Delaware
residents of color. A local Black Councilwoman was served an ethics
violation over a $600 charge for a community event while our Lt.
Governor spends eight years evading basic campaign reporting for
hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks made to her husband but
she will not even receive a fine. If the Hall-Long team can’t
manage their own checkbook, how will they manage the State’s
budget?
“There is no excuse for the blind eye that the Carney
administration is turning away from Bethany Hall-Long’s use of
campaign donations for personal gain, and it's time for her to
resign from office and apologize to the donors and the voters of
Delaware. We need honest leadership that will work for the people
not take from the people. Even though the Carney administration
will let her get away with it, the people of Delaware cannot.”
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Press: press@citizenspac2024.com