Ex-Clinton aide to go on trial
LOS ANGELES – Campaign donations made more than four years ago at a celebrity-studded Hollywood gala have led to a federal criminal trial against a former finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that could hamper her future campaigns.
The trial set to open Tuesday focuses on a lavish August 2000 political party at a tony Brentwood estate that drew dozens of A-list guests and performers, including Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Cher, Diana Ross and Muhammad Ali.
Clinton hasn’t been linked to charges that the cost of the event was vastly underreported, but Republicans will be watching for any ammunition they can use against the Democrat, considered an early front-runner for the 2008 presidential nomination.
David Rosen, who was Clinton’s finance director during her 2000 U.S. Senate run, faces three counts of filing a false statement. An FBI agent speculated in an affidavit that Rosen was trying to duck federal financing rules so the campaign would have more money to spend on other expenses.
Rosen pleaded not guilty in January. He could face up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted.
The party, called a “Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton,” included both a dinner and a concert. About 350 people accepted invitations to both, which cost $25,000 a couple. About 1,200 people purchased $1,000 tickets just for the concert.
Many people got complimentary tickets and campaign reports never gave a full accounting of the total money taken in. However, organizers reported raising nearly $1.1 million for a joint committee benefiting Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign and the national and state-level Democratic parties.
Rosen, 40, reported the event was underwritten by about $400,000 worth of “in kind” contributions – goods and services provided for free or below cost – but Peter F. Paul, a three-time convicted felon who pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud charges, has told prosecutors he gave the campaign at least $1.1 million for the affair.
Paul has filed a lawsuit claiming he bankrolled the gala on a promise that former President Clinton would become a “goodwill ambassador” for his Internet media company. He is ready to testify against Rosen, according to his attorney, Joseph Conway.
Under arcane campaign finance rules of the time, reporting the event’s actual cost would have forced the campaign to forfeit coveted “hard money,” according to Larry Noble, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer who now leads the campaign-finance watchdog Center for Responsive Politics.