McClure wants Campbell investigated

City Council candidate Matthew McClure yesterday sent letters to the district attorney, attorney general and the city's Board of Ethics, accusing primary opponent Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell of campaign finance violations and calling for an investigation.

McClure spotlighted Genesis IV, a political action committee founded by Campbell, that received $10,000 contributions from each of six judicial candidates and the Friends of John Perzel committee in 2005.

Those contributions were reported on the donating committees' campaign expense reports but not on any Genesis IV reports for 2005, McClure contended.

"The money may have been spent legitimately but it's not in the reports, so who knows," he said.

But Campbell disputed McClure's allegations, saying that her brother Edgar C. Campbell Jr., treasurer of Genesis IV, filed amended reports with the Pennsylvania Department of State as the law requires.

She produced a copy of a 2005 report showing $10,000 contributions from the campaign committees of Walter J. Olszewski, Sharon Williams Losier, David C. Shuter, Glenn Bronson and Brad Moss. There were similar contributions from committees for Bob Brady, Perzel, the Democratic City Committee and Joyce Eubanks, now a legislative consultant for Campbell's office.

McClure and Curtis Jones Jr., the former executive director of the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corp., are challenging Campbell in the May 15 primary for the council seat serving part of West Philadelphia, East Falls, Manayunk and Roxborough.

After an attorney general's investigation in 2001, Campbell was convicted of violating state campaign finance laws in connection with two PACs that she used to accept and disburse campaign funds. She was sentenced to probation and fined. More recently she paid fines for failing to file campaign expense reports from a 1999 run for City Council.

In his letters to prosecutors, McClure also raised questions about money spent by Genesis IV on a car lease, phone bills and other credit card bills.

"This is ridiculous. These are the same kind of things he accused me of when he tried to knock me off the ballot," Campbell said. She did concede, however, that Genesis funds did pay for a car lease and a phone line at a building that the Edgar C. Campbell Foundation is rehabbing for a program to provide training to the "hard-core unemployed." *