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Campaign-finance complaint filed against school board member Matthew Sheldon

Watchdog contends he knew filing rules
Sheldon

A hearing is underway in a complaint filed against Matthew Sheldon regarding his failure to file a campaign-finance report in his successful bid for the Durango School District 9-R school board last fall.

In October, Sheldon said he missed the first filing of campaign donations and expenditures because he had failed to register a campaign committee at the same time he registered his candidacy with the Colorado secretary of state’s office.

“I know there was a mistake, and I’m not denying it,” Sheldon said when reached by phone Monday, referring all further questions to his lawyer, Lori Potter, because it is a pending legal matter.

The hearing began Friday, Potter said, but was continued for the presentation of “an additional witness or witnesses,” so she was unable to speak further on the case because a continuation means the hearing is still legally underway.

The complaint was filed by Campaign Integrity Watchdog at the end of January.

“These are usually fairly cut-and-dried,” said Matt Arnold, director of the watchdog group, “but his defense was based entirely on presenting him as a poor kid who goofed, and we should cut him some slack. He may have been a first-time candidate, but he is no neophyte.”

Sheldon’s attorney provided this statement Tuesday morning: “We do not intend to try our case in the media, as Mr. Arnold is doing, in what appears to be an effort to smear Mr. Sheldon’s reputation.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Arnold took issue with Potter’s comments.

“I am not trying this in the media,” he said. “I was responding to a media inquiry.”

Arnold said he felt obligated to point out Sheldon’s previous experience after the defense of inexperience was raised.

“He has been involved in campaigns since he became an adult, and he has extensive experience in navigating campaign-finance law,” Arnold said.

Sheldon has been campaign chairman for three state-level offices, Bruce Whitehead’s 2010 campaign for state Senate and Michael McLachlan’s two runs for the 59th state House district seat in 2012 and 2014.

This is the second time Sheldon has been involved in a campaign charged with campaign-finance violations. During McLachlan’s second run for the state Legislature, the campaign failed to list the partners in a limited liability corporation who had made donations.

The names are important because, under Colorado law, the maximum an individual can contribute to a state legislative campaign is $400, so the ability to track individual donors is a key element of campaign-finance accountability.

In February 2015, McLachlan was ordered to pay $2,660 in fines and to return a $400 donation where the donor limited liability corporation had properly disclosed its partners with the donation, but McLachlan’s campaign had not recognized the disclosure.

Arnold said he had asked Sheldon on the stand whether he had ever been a designated filing agent on a campaign, and Sheldon said “no.”

But documents filed with the secretary of state’s office and available through TRACER, the office’s online reports database, showed Sheldon had been the designated filing agent on both the 2012 and 2014 McLachlan campaigns, Arnold said.

“It appeared to actually catch his attorney by surprise,” Arnold said. “I believe he perjured himself. People often come with all kinds of reasons why they committed the campaign-finance violation, but they don’t lie.”

Any charge of perjury has yet to be made, Arnold said.

“I can say that his allegation of perjury is so improper that the judge in the ongoing proceeding ordered him not to repeat it,” Potter added in her Tuesday statement. “He talks about his allegations as if they are established fact. This is emphatically not so. The case is not finished, the documents Mr. Arnold is talking about have not been admitted into evidence, and Mr. Sheldon is not finished testifying. Mr. Sheldon deserves an apology.”

Arnold “categorically” denied that the judge had ordered him not to repeat the allegation in an email late Tuesday afternoon.

“I stand behind my statements,” Potter said in response.

Arnold submitted the TRACER documents, numbered M1 and M2, subsequent to the original complaint, but, Potter pointed out, in legal terminology, submitted does not mean entered into evidence.

“The court has to evaluate them to see if they prove what he says,” Potter said.

Colorado Secretary of State Office spokeswoman Lynn Bartels said lawyers had been calling for the TRACER records on Monday.

Brieanne Stahnke, Sheldon’s opponent in the race, said she preferred not to comment at this time.

Both Arnold and Potter had expected to have a date for the continuance of the hearing by Tuesday, but neither had heard from the Administrative Courts clerk by late afternoon.

abutler@durangoherald.com

A headline in an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Matthew Arnold as an attorney. He brought the complaint as the director of Campaign Integrity Watchdog and is presenting the complaint in court as an officer representing the nonprofit organization.

Sheldon campaign complaint (PDF)

Sheldon candidacy affadavit (PDF)

Sheldon committee registration (PDF)

Sheldon committee amendment (PDF)

9-R candidate information (PDF)

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