Furey PAC Expenditures Raise Questions About Illegal Campaign Coordination
Patrick Furey
The Torrance Voters PAC to Support Pat Furey for Mayor (“Furey PAC”) made headlines in the recent mayoral election when it received large donations from McCormick Ambulance and the Torrance Firefighters Association that helped propel Furey to an election victory. Where did all that money go? A familiar name that keeps surfacing at the end of the money trail is Patrick Furey, the campaign manager and son of Mayor Pat Furey.
PAC campaign contributions are not subject to the same contribution limits as donations made directly to a candidate. For that reason, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) forbids candidates, and their agents, from coordinating in any fashion with independent PACs. As the Campaign Manager for his father any involvement by Patrick Furey in the Furey PAC would trigger concerns about illegal campaign coordination.
Required Campaign expenditure filings show that the Voters to Elect Furey PAC made over $30,000 in payments to Veritas Consulting. The address provided for that business is a residential apartment located at 23930 Ocean Ave #266. Other than the campaign disclosure, no records seem to exist of any business with that name operating at that location.
A business called Zakka, LLC, however, does appear to operate from that apartment. Interestingly, a business search on the California Secretary of State website affirms Patrick Furey as the principal corporate agent of Zakka. The same website also lists Patrick Furey as the principal agent of another company called Veritas Campaigns – a company name that is strikingly similar to Veritas Consulting. According to the company website Veritas campaigns assisted with Mayor Furey’s then Councilmember campaign in 2011.
Adding to the puzzle, the listed Treasurer for the Furey PAC is a lady by the name of Tina McKinnor. Patrick Furey and McKinnor have been linked working together before on other campaigns. The Daily Breeze in fact reported on a lawsuit filed against the pair for their involvement in a City Council race in Simi Valley.
All of that in itself is surprising, but the story goes further. One way the FPPC determines illegal coordination is if the campaign and the independent PAC utilize the same service. Both Furey’s campaign and the Furey PAC list expenditures to Jeff Taylor Graphics located at 2633 Lincoln Blvd, STE 837 in Santa Monica. A search for the entity yields no results and the location provided is a P.O. Box at a UPS store in a strip mall. How is it that both the Furey Campaign and the Furey PAC could have contracted with the same phantom business without coordination? CBS Outdoor is another vendor listed in both financial disclosures.
Maybe all of this is just a random coincidence and there is no connection between the shadowy Veritas Consulting and Patrick Furey. Given the above facts, however, one has to wonder to what extent, if any, the Furey campaign was involved with the Furey PAC. Whether there was illegal coordination or just unfortunate circumstance, it does appear likely that Mayor Furey will have some explaining to do before the FPPC.
If that does turn out to be the case, it won’t be the first time. Patrick Furey was already fined by the FPPC in the past election for a deceptive slate mailer. Despite that, Mayor Furey has been a staunch supporter of his son suggesting that the work Patrick did for his campaign merited an award. To that effect, Furey’s campaign did reward his son quite handsomely for his efforts. Indeed, records indicate that Liberty Campaign Solutions, yet another company operated by Patrick Furey, received nearly $40K from the Furey Campaign in what was presumably payment for Patrick’s efforts as Campaign Manager.
Usually where there is smoke there is fire.
The FPPC has opened an investigation into this matter. Illegal coordination cases are notoriously hard to prove, but in light of the City awarding a contract to McCormick ambulance for emergency services the outcome of this case becomes even more significant.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/government-and-politics/20141123/torrance-mayor-pat-fureys-campaign-under-state-investigation-for-possible-election-law-violation#disqus_thread
You are the one who made the anonymous complaint to FPPC. It’s called a public records request. So you are reporting on an investigation you created and pretending you didn’t make the complaint.
I just did a public records request too. There it was clearly printed – Clint Paulson is the one who made the complaint. And the complaint is so vague and filled with strange documents, it is hard to say what the complaint even is. From what I read, it basically says that there was potentially illegal coordination because people knew each other. There isn’t any substantiated facts at all, just conjecture and rantings of Clint and John Bailey.
FPPC Commissioner Gavin Wasserman’s name is in there too. I wonder if he will recuse himself, since he lost to the Mayor in 2008 when he ran for city council. That would appear to be a conflict of interest. Lets not mention the fact that he ran political campaigns out of a building he owns, which is in direct conflict to the rules he agreed to when he was appointed to the FPPC.
“See Something, Say Something.” Isn’t that the mantra of the Torrance Police Department? So yes, guilty as charged I saw something suspicious and I said something. I’m sure even Mayor Furey himself would agree that’s exactly what he wants good and decent citizens of the community to do. If a burglar is trying to get into somebody’s house and the neighbor across the street calls the police, should we blame the neighbor for any resulting investigation or the person that was engaging in the suspicious conduct?
For the record, I had no idea the trail would lead where it did. My whole campaign for City Council was built around taking a stand against the negative influence of money in politics and with that mindset I decided to look into the money trail for many of the candidates. I agonized quite a bit about whether I should bring the information I had uncovered forward, but in the end I decided it was the right thing to do. I could have hidden behind anonymous complaints, but I didn’t. I had the courage to put my name behind this from the very beginning. This is my blog after all and I never shied away from being the author of this post. How about you? Instead of posting anonymous rants to my site, why not come out from the shadows and let us know who you are? If you have information that would alleviate the suspicions I raised and exonerate Mayor Furey then great let me know and I would be happy to post it on this site.
I can’t speak for the FPPC, but my understanding is that they conducted a fairly extensive review into the matter before determining there was sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation. That was their call, not mine. I initially contacted them because I wanted to know if the circumstances I wrote about had already been looked into. I didn’t want to post this if it was something the FPPC had already reviewed. They hadn’t looked into it, but in the end they clearly thought it was something that they should. So, now they are, and I guess we’ll see where it goes. If you want to blame me for Mayor Furey’s troubles, then go ahead, but I don’t think that course of action will gain you a lot of points in the eyes of the public.
I wonder, did you ever ask the Mayor or anybody involved about this before anonymously complaining to the state? That would have been the mature, adult thing to do. Instead you made ridiculous accusations (including stuff to do with golf games after the election) without even talking to the people involved. Pathetic.
You can tell Mayor Furey I would love to talk with him about this and other stuff going on in the City anytime. I would love to hear his explanation.
Clint, someone is getting very nervous. Maybe they should be. Who or what is Jeff Taylor Graphics? If campaign and PAC money went there and the company is a shell, who actually cashed the checks? Who is Veritas Consulting? Rather than attack you, why doesn’t someone from the campaign explain if they can? Wouldn’t that be the mature and honest thing to do?
What
ever happened to the investigation? It’s been weeks.
At long last it would appear the FPPC reached its conclusion in this matter http://www.dailybreeze.com/government-and-politics/20160307/state-fines-pat-fureys-torrance-mayoral-campaign-35000-for-hiding-illegal-campaign-contributions#disqus_thread
The father and son team is the most corrupt and nasty the city has ever seen. They are giving democrats a bad name.
The Democrats already have a bad name.
If my last name would be Gerber, I would be looking into interviewing law firms who specialize in this kind of corruption . Plenty of deep pockets to go around including those of Senior and Junior.
At the City Council meeting held March 21, 2016, during the public’s first section of “orals”, the Mayor responded to one of the speakers stating that the FPPC Stipulation HE signed, in which he agreed his campaign violated the FPPC rules, and he agreed to pay over $1,000 in fines … THE MAYOR made misleading statements, once again. He said the Stipulation he signed with the FPPC (in which he admitted to violating provisions of the FAIR political practices Act, set forth that the FPPC had NO EVIDENCE against him regarding the violations. The Stipulation actually states the FPPC found “NO DIRECT EVIDENCE”. That is entirely different. The mayor is an attorney and knows full well that “indirect evidence” is never mentioned in the Stipulation and, further, that “indirect evidence” (from which a reasonable person given the facts can reasonably infer) is just as powerful. However, the Stipulation is silent as to any “indirect evidence” the investigation may have revealed. By stating publicly there was NO evidence against him, Our Mayor mislead the Torrance residents.
Pat Furey Senior has misled and even lied on his commission application for a Torrance City Commission back in 2005. Go to the minutes of 4-12-05 and see how he got caught lying about have a Bachelor’s Degree from UCLA. Too bad the video is has blanked out for the public to see when he got caught.
http://www.torranceca.gov/PDF/CC04122005_F.pdf