Former Lynch aide admits stealing from campaign
The former accountant for the campaign committee of US Representative Stephen F. Lynch admitted in court yesterday that he stole $24,000 from the campaign over an eight-month period in 2003 and 2004.
As part of a plea deal with the office of Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, Daniel J. Hurley, 48, of South Boston agreed to repay the funds, plus about $13,000 in legal fees incurred by the Stephen Lynch for Congress Committee in connection with the case.
As part of yesterday's disposition agreement, District Court Judge Thomas Horgan continued the case without a finding for three years.
Hurley was indicted in May 2005 by a Suffolk County grand jury on nine charges of larceny plus one charge of making false entry into corporate books. As part of the agreement, the false-entry indictment was dropped when the charges, which were originally brought in Superior Court, were disposed of in South Boston District Court.
In court, Hurley admitted he wrote seven checks to himself of $3,000 each and one each of $2,000 and $1,000 between June 2003 and February 2004. The unauthorized checks were in addition to Hurley's $3,000-a-month compensation as accountant for the Lynch committee and were discovered when the campaign's treasurer tried to reconcile the books, Assistant Attorney General Dana D. Leccese told the court.
Hurley was the Lynch campaign's accountant from 2001 until March 2004. Lynch, then a Democratic state senator from South Boston, won a special election in 2001 to succeed the late J. Joseph Moakley in Congress.
Besides restitution of the stolen money, Hurley agreed to pay about $13,000 in legal fees incurred by Lynch's campaign committee, which hired attorney J.W. Carney Jr. earlier this year.
Carney, who made several appearances in court, said his role was limited to seeking to quash subpoenas sought by Hurley's lawyer, Kevin J. Reddington, who tried to gain broad access to financial records of Lynch's political committee and Lynch himself.
The court never resolved the subpoena issue. Carney, who entered the case last January, said in an interview that after he filed his motion in opposition, "the matter was not aggressively pushed by [Hurley's] counsel."
On Sunday, the Globe reported other problems with Lynch campaign accounts, including the Lynch campaign committee's purchase two months ago of a $44,641 sport utility vehicle that is actually owned by Lynch and used for personal as well as official and campaign travel.
Also, the newspaper reported that about $40,000 worth of equipment and services purchased by the Lynch state campaign committee benefited his 2001 campaign in the special federal election, an apparent violation of Federal Election Commission regulations.
Lynch campaign officials said the SUV purchase-ownership arrangement does not violate any FEC rule, but said the committee would consult with the commission on the issue of state committee expenditures in the federal election.
