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Robach Charges That Soros’ Money To Dollinger Is Illegal (Updated)

October
29

Sen. Joseph Robach’s campaign is claiming that Democratic opponent Richard Dollinger illegally accepted two $9,500 donations yesterday from Melissa Schiff-Soros, daughter-in-law of billionaire Wall Street mogul George Soros which exceeds campaign finance limits.

Robach’s campaign points out that state law limits contributions from non-family members to a a maximum of $9,500 per candidate, per election cycle.

“These two donations from Mrs. Schiff-Soros are an obvious and egregious attempt by the Soros family and the Dollinger campaign to break our state’s campaign finance laws,” Robach’s campaign said in a statement.

“Citizens for Joe Robach is demanding Rick Dollinger immediately return the illegal $9,500 donation from Mrs. Schiff-Soros and we are calling on the Board of Elections to investigate this matter.”

Updated: Dollinger’s campaign said that it was a website error and the filing was double posted. It is now corrected online. The campaign said that never “at anytime was there more than the one check received by the Dollinger campaign.”

“If Robach had lent as much energy to researching this outlandish allegation as he did to making it he would have saved himself the embarrassment of being wrong,” said spokesman Sean Hart. “We warned voters about the desperate measures taken by Republicans in the final days of the campaign. Let’s take this for what it is, another failed attempt to distract voters from Republican Joe Robach’s failed record on the economy, job creation, property taxes, education and health care.”

Robach’s campaign also chided Dollinger for accepting $47,500 from Soros and his family since July, saying “Soros is one of the nation’s leading advocates for the legalization of illicit drugs that are harmful to our children and our families.”

George Soros’ son, Robert, also gave Dollinger $9,500 on Tuesday.

The recent spending showed up in the 24-hour filings before Election Day.

Robert Soros in recent days also gave $9,000 to Queens Councilman James Gennaro in his run against Sen. Frank Padavan, $9,000 to Brookhaven Supervisor Brian Foley in his run against Sen. Caesar Trunzo on Long Island, and $9,000 to Joe Mesi against Republican Mike Ranzenhofer in western New York.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 12:35 pm by Joseph Spector.
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A behind-the-scenes look at state government and politics from the Capitol bureau of Gannett News Service.
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About the authors
Jay GallagherJay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0.
Cara MatthewsCara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them.

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