It took mere hours for ex-delegate Bobby Mathieson to pledge to spend taxpayer money to try to save his fledgling, insignificant and short-lived legislative career.
It’s been months since his aide had been investigated for embezzling campaign funds, and we haven’t heard a peep.
“Mathieson said he filed a police report Thursday concerning discrepancies and misuse of campaign funds by a staffer” (Sept. 10th, Virginian-Pilot)
Since that police report over two months ago, Mathieson’s campaign finance reports have had cash on hand numbers of a big, giant ZERO! A big O. A giant goose egg. Now, if you saw the bazillion negative campaign commercials he ran, you know he didn’t go two months without money. He just went two months without reporting what money he had on hand.
My question is this. Mathieson had a legislative aide. Large amounts of money were missing. How hard can it be to investigate one person who had access to one bank account? Two month without a story in the newspaper about the progress in the “investigation”?
It amounted to a significant advantage for Mathieson in the campaign. Villanueva had to report every cent he had on hand. Mathieson could simply report ZERO. Mathieson knew what Villanueva had in the bank. No one knew anything about Mathieson’s account.
So, while the Mathieson campaign is zipping out press releases attacking Electoral Boards, maybe it could piece one together about why it takes two months to investigate one checkbook and one aide. Have charges been filed? How much was stolen? How long were funds taken from right under Bobby’s nose without him ever noticing. What were the funds used for?
Let’s go, Mr. count-every-vote. Count every dollar!
