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No charges in Lake Geneva campaign finance case

LAKE GENEVA — The Walworth County District Attorney’s Office will not issue charges of campaign finance violations based on a complaint from a Linn Township resident.

The complaint stemmed from the last mayoral race in Lake Geneva.

Dick Malmin, a supporter of former Alderman Spyro “Speedo” Condos, accused Mayor Bill Chesen and Lake Geneva Area Realty owner Sal Dimiceli of skirting campaign finance laws in the placement of ads in the Lake Geneva Regional News in March 2008.

The district attorney’s office in a recent letter said it would not issue charges because the state Government Accountability Board has advised against it not only to avoid “costly litigation,” but also to avoid “the potential payment of attorney fees for potential claims of infringement of a constitutional right.”

Malmin is disappointed.

“It totally opens the door for people to do anything they want,” he said. “If there never are any charges filed … then why would anyone even bother filling out campaign finance forms? It makes campaign finance totally uncontrollable.”

Malmin wrote in a letter to the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office that Dimiceli used his corporate account to place campaign ads in the Lake Geneva paper March 13 and 20, 2008. The former general manager of the paper charged Dimiceli a special rate because he thought they were ads for his business or his charity, not for a political candidate, according to Malmin’s letter.

Condos filed a complaint with the Lake Geneva police about the disparity between the price he and his supporters were paying for ads in the paper and the price Chesen and his supporters were paying.

The former general manager told police Dimiceli was charged his usual rate of $450 each but should have been charged $669 each because they were political ads, according to police reports. He told police he already had notified Dimiceli of the error and Dimiceli had paid the balance, according to police reports.

Malmin wrote that the extra costs were not listed on the campaign finance report for the Friends of William P. Chesen, which is a violation of campaign finance laws, according to Malmin’s letter.

Malmin also questioned whether the same thing happened with a full-page ad that ran March 27, 2008, after Condos filed his complaint with the police. The cost of the third ad was not listed on Chesen’s campaign finance report, which again is a violation of campaign finance laws, according to Malmin’s letter. If the ad was a campaign contribution from Lake Geneva Area Realty, it also was a violation of campaign finance laws, according to the letter.

Malmin said he has exhausted his options with regard to the issue.

“I’m stymied,” he said.