Kim Campaign Ex-Treasurer Tells of Reimbursing Donors, Taking Cash

California Rep. Jay C. Kim’s former campaign treasurer told a federal jury Friday that he reimbursed contributors with up to $18,000 of his own money and accepted cash donations in apparent violation of election laws because he never learned the rules and was prevented from questioning his superiors by Korean cultural mores.

Seokuk Ma, a telecommunications supplier who coordinated fund-raisers for the Diamond Bar Republican and volunteered as his campaign treasurer from April through November 1994, said he was never told what constituted a contribution but didn’t ask questions when Kim’s wife, June, instructed him to sign blank election report pages.

“My culture is very different,” Ma said. “I respect congressman Kim very much. If they ask me to do something like that, I cannot refuse. If I say no, it’s kind of an insult to them.”

Ma was indicted in December as a result of a four-year FBI probe of fraud in Kim’s campaign. He was charged with receiving and concealing illegal contributions and pressuring a witness to withhold information from a federal grand jury. He has pleaded not guilty.

In three days of courtroom wrangling this week, federal prosecutors and Ma’s lawyers have presented two starkly different pictures of his role in the Kim campaign. Prosecutors contend that he was a savvy political operative who deliberately dodged election laws to raise quick cash for Kim. His lawyers present him as an earnest campaign volunteer who unwittingly ran afoul of the Federal Election Commission and is being targeted unfairly.

Testimony from both sides has painted Kim’s 1994 reelection bid as a campaign in disarray, with shoddy record-keeping practices, poor oversight of its staff, and an inability to respond when it did uncover illegal donations.

“People say I’m treasurer,” Ma told the jury. “I’m not sure myself.”

But under questioning from his attorney, Ma admitted to several of the government’s charges. He said he solicited $12,000 in individual donations from employees of a bank and a real estate agent, then reimbursed them out of his own pocket because he “was trying to help” Kim.

Corporate contributions and individual donations of more than $1,000 per election are illegal.

Ma said under questioning from the government that he had reimbursed his company secretary and her husband for $3,000 in contributions they made to Kim, at least once even after he admitted he knew such a reimbursement was illegal. That apparent violation was not included in the indictment.

He also said the campaign illegally accepted cash as the admission fee for a 1993 golf tournament fund-raiser, but dismissed suggestions that it should have been reported, saying “I don’t think that’s a contribution.” And he said he paid the expenses of a 1994 fund-raiser at a Los Angeles hotel with $6,700 in corporate checks taken in at the event, although he insisted that he didn’t know what was in the envelope he handed to his hotel contact.

Kim has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but has said in court documents that he would take the 5th Amendment if summoned to testify. Defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully this week to subpoena Kim’s attorney.