#campaign-finance-fraud

#campaign-finance-fraud

The elderly treasurer for a Brooklyn borough president candidate was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and three years probation for a failed straw donor scheme to scam the city out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in public matching funds. Erlene King, 72, who worked on the 2021 primary election campaign of Democrat Anthony Jones, was sentenced by Brooklyn Federal Court Carol Bagley Amon on Wednesday, after pleading guilty to wire fraud in January 2025.

Williamson was charged with bank and tax fraud for allegedly siphoning campaign and COVID-19 recovery funds into her and an associate's pockets and claiming personal luxuries as business expenses on tax forms. According to the indictment, the campaign funds were drawn from a dormant state account of another top California Democrat: gubernatorial candidate and former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra.