Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced a grand jury indictment against a former Indiana lawmaker and a casino executive who did business with Strategic Campaign Group, the shuttered firm led by disgraced consultant Kelley Rogers.
It’s the first case that federal prosecutors have announced with links to the former Republican fundraiser, who was sentenced in January to three years in prison for wire fraud.
On Tuesday former state Sen. Darryl Brent Waltz, who ran for the GOP nomination in Indian’s 9th U.S. House district in 2016, “was charged with one count of conspiracy to make conduit contributions, false statements and to falsify FEC records, one count of making and receiving conduit contributions, one count of falsifying FEC records, and two counts of making false statements related to a scheme to route contributions through conduit donors to his 2016 congressional campaign, in violation of federal campaign finance law,” according to a release.
The charges against Waltz, who finished fourth in a five-person field in the primary for now-Sen. Todd Young’s (R) former seat, were unveiled a day after his condo in Greenwood, Ind., was raided by the FBI.
Meanwhile, John S. Keeler, a VP at gaming company New Centaur LLC, was charged with “one count of conspiracy to make illegal corporate contributions, false statements and to falsify FEC records, one count of making illegal corporate contributions, one count of falsification of FEC records.”
The indictment alleges that Rogers, as Waltz’s consultant, and his employee Chip O’Neil, helped channel funds from Keeler’s company to straw donors who contributed to the state lawmaker’s congressional primary campaign.
O’Neil was convicted earlier this year of “conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions under other people’s names,” and sentenced to six months home confinement.
In this case, Rogers and O’Neil are accused of recruiting nine straw donors who agreed to contribute to Waltz’s campaign and then get reimbursed. They also made straw contributions themselves, which were reimbursed by New Centaur LLC, according to the inducement.
The feds’ indictment includes a description of a meeting between Rogers and “an executive” from the New Centaur LLC at the Indianapolis airport on April 10, 2015 where Rogers agreed to receive money and channel it via straw donors to Waltz’s campaign. They planned to use fake invoices and contracts to conceal the financial dealings.
The feds allege that Rogers also made an illegal in-kind contribution to Waltz by working for him while getting paid by New Centaur LLC. In fact, Rogers’ company CCI signed an agreement with New Centaur LLC to provide services such as “monitoring of all presidential candidates,” “providing briefings as desired,” “scheduling notices of candidate activities as requested by your organization” and “notification of any changes in the federal campaign finance law as it relates to presidential campaigns.” The fee: $38,500.
“Rogers and O’Neil new this agreement was fake and they never intended to perform these services,” the indictment states.
Another agreement between a company Rogers controlled (KRR) and New Centaur LLC was for $41,00 to “review” various “off-track betting facilities, racetrack betting facilities and recruitment techniques to improve horse population.” That agreement was also fake, according to the indictment.
Of the $79,500 he received from New Centaur LLC, Rogers allegedly kept $33,300 and arranged for the rest to be transferred to Waltz’s campaign, which subsequently filed a false FEC report.
Waltz even recruited straw donors himself, according to the indictment. In one instance on Sept. 29, 2015, Waltz personally visited a straw donor, identified as Straw Donor 10, at her home. He gave her at “at least” $2,700 in cash and in exchange received a $2,700 to “Brent Waltz for Congress.” In total, Waltz recruited four straw donors and received $16,500 via Rogers to cover those contributions, according to the inducement.