Gov. Bill Ritter’s former campaign manager was accused again today of mishandling money, this time money from Ritter’s campaign account.
Ritter’s office said it had forwarded information about the misspent funds to the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s office, which is investigating the matter. But an attorney for Greg Kolomitz, the governor’s former campaign director, said his client had repaid the money in question and there was no crime.
Especially, he said, since Ritter’s campaign also owed Kolomitz money.
“In light of the fact that money was owed in both directions, I think it’s fair to say there were some accounting issues that had to be resolved,” said Rick Kornfeld , attorney for Kolomitz.
In April, the governor’s office said it had discovered that Kolomitz had incorrectly used inaugural funds to pay off more than $200,000 in campaign debt and to pay himself $83,250 in bonuses.
Ritter, who had to take out a loan against his house to repay $200,000 to the inaugural committee, said he was “extremely disappointed” with Kolomitz and would never use his services again. The Denver political strategist later repaid the inaugural committee the $83,250 he took in bonuses and said he used “poor judgment” in handling the inaugural money.
The matter was ultimately forwarded to the Arapahoe County District Attorney’s Office for criminal investigation.
Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Ritter, said the misspent inaugural funds also prompted a closer look at the campaign committee finances.
Dreyer said officials discovered that Kolomitz had received three unauthorized payments from the campaign committee in 2006. Two checks, one for $22,500 in April 2006 and another for $7,500 in July of 2006, were later listed as “bonuses.”
Dreyer said he wrote those checks to Kolomitz himself while working on Ritter’s campaign in 2006.
“It is another demonstration that we had a less-than-ideal system for monitoring the campaign finances, and I take some of the heat for that,” Dreyer said. “I was asked to write these two checks for a lot of money and didn’t ask enough questions.”
Meanwhile, there was a separate, unauthorized payment of $7,500 from a payroll system to Kolomitz in April 2006. Records from the payroll system show that payment listed as “bonus.”
In all, Kolomitz received $37,500 in unauthorized payments. However, Dreyer said, Ritter’s campaign also discovered it owed Kolomitz $27,159.91 for polling expenses.
Kolomitz wrote Ritter’s campaign a check for the difference, $10,340.09.
“We’ve cooperated with the Ritter people and the issue’s been resolved,” Kornfeld said. “There has not been a formal criminal complaint filed. I don’t anticipate that that would happen.
“We don’t think there was a crime at any point.”Ritter’s $1 million inaugural in 2007 featured events stretching over more than a week, including dinners at a downtown Denver hotel and the Colorado Convention Center, a concert by country singer Jessie Colter a whistle-stop train tour along the Front Range and a statewide fly-around with Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien Ritter’s inaugural committee raised $1.1 million in private donations that came from unions, corporations, smaller businesses and individuals. Some donations, such as one from Qwest, were as much as $25,000.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
