Lawyer claims Forrester's gubernatorial campaign violates law

[Kire]

Lawyer claims Forrester's gubernatorial campaign violates law

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
Associated Press Writer

August 10, 2005, 6:43 PM EDT

PRINCETON BOROUGH, N.J. -- A public interest lawyer on Wednesday charged Republican Douglas Forrester with intentionally skirting New Jersey law by licensing an insurance company out-of-state and using the shell operation to illegally funnel millions in loans to his largely self-financed gubernatorial campaign.

In the most scathing rebuke of the candidate and his finances to date, the lawyer, Bruce Afran of Princeton, accused Forrester of violating campaign finance laws enacted to prevent undue influence in state-regulated industries, such as insurance and banking. Among other things, the law bans insurance companies and those who own a majority stake in them from donating money to political causes.

Forrester owns a 51 percent interest in Heartland Fidelity Insurance Co., a Washington, D.C.-based company he started two years ago. Heartland insures the price of health benefit plans offered by BeneCard Services Inc., another Forrester company.

"I have to seriously question how he can continue to run," Afran said. "This amounts to misrepresentation to the Department of Banking and Insurance."

Banking and Insurance officials on Wednesday said they had requested additional documents from Heartland, two days after the company asked state regulators to look into the matter.

More: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--forrestersmoney0810aug10,0,160027.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey

[blue_7th_nj]

1. This is great

The kicker is that by putting Heartland in DC Forrester avoided paying $2 million in NJ taxes, and this is a guy running for governor saying he is going to cut our taxes! The best way he could help would be to pay the taxes his own companies owe instead of finding tax havens so the poor and middle class have to make up for his profits.

The best thing about this is that even if DOBI doesn't decide Heartland it doing business in NJ (and with most of its contracts and employees here, I can't see how that is possible), it is still going to be in the papers through September.

Forrester will be unable to talk about anything but this and get traction.