Filings by Patrick detail income of $3.8m in 2005

Democratic candidate for governor Deval L. Patrick made $3.8 million last year, including $360,000 for serving as a director of the parent company that oversees the controversial Ameriquest Mortgage Co., according to disclosure documents filed yesterday.

Two other candidates for governor, Democrat Christopher Gabrieli and Republican nominee Kerry Healey, reported extensive holdings, but offered fewer details than Patrick. Gabrieli owns a stake in eight companies or partnerships and four pieces of real estate. Healey reported that her husband, Sean M. Healey, has a stake in 12 partnerships and corporations.

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, another Democrat running for governor, reported income of more than $100,000 last year, including his $122,500 annual state salary. He also reported less than $10,000 in rental income from a vacation house in Chatham.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos and Green Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross do not have to file their disclosure statements until this summer.

Patrick provided a far more detailed disclosure than is required by the state, offering the most complete accounting of his private holdings since he declared his candidacy last year. Reilly released his income tax returns earlier this year. No other candidate has agreed to release their tax returns, and both Gabrieli and Healey have refused to make the detailed disclosures that Reilly and Patrick have made.

The wealth of the candidates has been a theme in this year's campaign. Patrick has been criticized by Reilly for his affiliation with Ameriquest. Healey faced scrutiny for a $1.2 million state tax break granted to her husband's firm in 2001.

Until Patrick filed his state-required financial disclosure yesterday, he had refused to disclose his pay from ACC Capital Holdings. In January, Ameriquest agreed to a $325 million nationwide settlement over charges of predatory lending activities. Patrick has said he joined ACC Capital Holdings, the parent of Ameriquest, in fall 2004 to help improve the company's lending practices; he announced his resignation earlier this month.

His largest source of income in 2005 was $3.1 million from the Coca-Cola Co., much of it under a severance agreement made when he left after serving nearly four years as general counsel and executive vice president. He and his wife Diane also donated $301,000 to charities, or about 8 percent of his total gross income. The couple paid $1.5 million in state and federal taxes.

``I have worked very hard and been very blessed," Patrick said in a statement.

The $360,000 Patrick received as a director of Ameriquest's parent company is higher than the average pay received by directors of the biggest public companies in 2004-2005, according to an expert on corporate compensation.

``It would be at the top of the range," said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at The Corporate Library, a Maine organization, and the author of a study of directors' pay released in February.

The study looked at the compensation of directors of more than 2,000 of the largest companies in the country. Of companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index, he said, the average compensation for directors was $170,000 in cash and stock.

ACC is a privately held company. The pay given directors of privately held companies is generally comparable to those of publicly traded corporations, he said.

Patrick attended about four or five board of directors meetings a year, according to Doug Rubin, a Patrick campaign adviser. Patrick also was appointed by the ACC board to serve as its liaison in the settlement discussions with 49 attorneys general over predatory lending allegations.

According to Rubin, that required ``four or five special briefings" for the board. One briefing was in person while the others were over the phone. He also held ``routine discussions" with the company's team that was negotiating with the states, according to the Patrick aide.

His other income for 2005 included: $295,266 as a director at Reebok International; and $33,799 for serving as a director of Coca-Cola Enterprises, a Coca-Cola subsidiary from which he resigned in 2004; and $10,000 as a member of the Ford Foundation board. He resigned from Reebok and the Ford Foundation last year.

Patrick, who grew up in poverty in Chicago's South Side and later made his way through Harvard Law School, also reported 250 holdings in stock and municipal bonds, but does not give a value for any of them. A filer is required to list only those holdings in stocks or bonds worth more than $1,000 in fair market value. He also listed 83 stocks and other equities that are in family trusts.

Candidates who are not incumbents are not required to disclose election year income or their spouse's income. The Globe reported earlier this year that he has $5.9 million in mortgages on his home in Milton and a vacation residence he is building in the Berkshire town of Richmond.

Reilly participated in the national settlement with Ameriquest, announcing that $12 million would be distributed to Massachusetts homeowners who said they had been victims of Ameriquest's practices. Reilly has been a sharp critic of Patrick's involvement with the firm.

``It seems to me that he reaped a big payout on the backs of the very people who were scammed by his company," Reilly said in a statement yesterday.

Patrick's severance agreement from Coca-Cola, worth $2.1 million, has been a public record since it was filed last year with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The extra money reported yesterday from Coca-Cola is from salary and other deferred compensation, his campaign said.

Patrick's resignation from the Atlanta-based corporation came in late 2004 after some conflict between him and Coke's CEO Douglas N. Daft. One of the issues was Patrick's attempt to get the company to deal with the paramilitary violence against union organizers at one of the locally owned bottling plants in Columbia.

Some labor leaders battling Coca-Cola say that Patrick, in his role as its general counsel, helped cover up the company's misdeeds. But Patrick says he believes strongly that he can be an effective force for change by working within the corporations such as Coca-Cola, Ameriquest, and at Texaco where he was general counsel.

``I have never left my conscience at the door," Patrick said this month, after he announced he would resign from the Ameriquest board at the end of June.