Times: Businessman Who Donated Illegally to McCain, Crist, Others Indicted

Thu, February 26, 2009 - 10:59 AM

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles take action

The New York Times has reported in today’s editions that a businessman with Florida Republican Party connections has been indicted on charges of funneling illegal contributions to the Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign.

The federal indictment in Los Angeles of the businessman, Ala’a al-Ali, 37, according to the paper, “shines a spotlight on the role of a business associate who the complaint asserts helped collect the donations.”

The associate, Harry Sargeant III, is a major Republican fund-raiser who owns an oil company with government contracts in Iraq and who recently resigned as finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

The paper reports Sargeant raised more than $500,000 for the 2008 Republican presidential campaign McCain.

The newspaper says that people briefed on the case say prosecutors charge that Ali arranged a total of $60,000 in illegal donations to the presidential campaigns of McCain, Republican Rudolph Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, and another $5,000 to Crist.

Read the entire story here

-- Billy House, Media General News Service