Mexican tycoon funded work on San Diego district attorney’s campaign, prosecutors say
Federal prosecutors on Thursday presented evidence in court that Mexican tycoon Jose Susumo Azano Matsura paid for a campaign services company to work on behalf of the 2012 mayoral campaign of San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
That evidence included testimony from a former employee of Ravneet Singh — owner of campaign services company ElectionMall — who said Singh told him that Azano was paying for the work on the Dumanis campaign.
Emails from ElectionMall employees and invoices sent to a Mexican company owned by Azano also filled out a picture of an alleged effort hatched in early 2012 to support Dumanis’ flagging campaign for mayor.
It’s illegal for a foreign national such as Azano to contribute money to a domestic election. Azano, Singh, Azano’s son Edward and lobbyist Marco Polo Cortes are all charged with conspiracy to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and services to local campaigns.
The donations supported the 2012 San Diego mayoral campaigns of Dumanis, Bob Filner and Rep. Juan Vargas for Congress, according to the federal complaint.
Prosecutors in the case contend Azano’s funding of the work was one of several ways he used his considerable wealth to try to influence the mayoral campaign. Singh — whose company had done similar campaign work for Azano on behalf of a candidate in the Mexican presidential election — was recruited into San Diego to help.
The work Singh did was not disclosed on campaign filings by the Dumanis campaign, apparently because the campaign believed Singh was volunteering his time. The government said that Singh and Azano conspired together to hide the source of the funds, and Azano’s role.
Dumanis campaign chief Jennifer Tierney testified that she spoke with Singh the day after Christmas in 2011 and told him the campaign was low on funds.
The day before, Dumanis had sent an email to Tierney and other figures in the campaign, excitedly talking about a conference call she was on involving Azano.
In the email Dumanis said Azano was wealthy and that it was unclear if Singh wanted “to do some volunteer advising or some form of paid work.” She then wrote that Singh “apparently flew to SD just to talk with Mr. A who wanted him to talk to me!”
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Tierney testified that Singh initially offered to do work for $995 per month, but she said that was too high. He dropped the price to $495, but the two sides never reached a formal agreement.
Tierney said that she told Singh he could provide “voluntary help” to the campaign — but could not allow anyone in his company to work on the project unless they, too, were volunteers.
Over the next several months, the campaign website was redesigned by ElectionMall, which frequently corresponded with the campaign by email. Singh’s lawyer, Michael Lipman, pressed Tierney about this period — saying that while campaign officials were aware the website was being worked on, they never received a bill.
Tierney said that she thought the work was being done by ElectionMall employees volunteering, as she had explained to Singh. She said that Singh had talked about doing the work voluntarily in order to break into the San Diego market.
During that time Ron Nehring, the former head of the county and state Republican Party who was working on the Dumanis campaign, exchanged emails about the website redesign with ElectionMall workers.
Nehring also testified Thursday and said he always thought that Singh and his company were being paid by the campaign. He said he had “no reason to believe” that Singh was volunteering and assumed the company was being paid.
The apparently murky knowledge among Dumanis campaigners about the ElectionMall work was in stark contrast to what was understood in the company. Aaron Ronsheim, a former director of Web strategy for the company, testified Singh told him flat out the campaign was not paying — but “Mr. A. paid for some of the work on the Bonnie Dumanis campaign.”
In an email from March 2012, another ElectionMall employee referred an attached invoice for the “betty boo” project — the code name Singh used for the Dumanis campaign, prosecutors contend. The invoice was for $100,000 — an amount the email said was $25,000 more than previously billed a month earlier, but that “Mr. A verbally agreed” to the increase.
Dumanis has said she was unaware of the source of the money. She has not been called to testify, and is not on the witness list.
Greg Moran is a staff writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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