{"id":11319,"date":"2016-04-01T23:28:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-02T05:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11319"},"modified":"2016-04-01T23:29:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T05:29:36","slug":"jury-says-wittich-broke-campaign-finance-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/04\/jury-says-wittich-broke-campaign-finance-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury says Wittich broke campaign-finance laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rhoades\"<\/a>

Kimberly Reed<\/p>

State Rep. Art Wittich, left, confers with his attorney, Quentin Rhoades.<\/p><\/div>\n

HELENA \u2014 It took a jury of six men and six women four hours Friday to find that Bozeman Republican lawmaker Art Wittich illegally coordinated with non-profit third-party political groups during his 2010 primary election campaign.<\/p>\n

Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl, the state elections enforcer who brought the civil lawsuit against Wittich for violations of campaign finances laws, told reporters after the trial that the jury\u2019s decision will have lasting impacts on Montana elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a different culture now,\u201d Motl said. \u201cA jury of peers is saying that they understand that one candidate\u2019s election has an impact on all of the people of this state, and on all the other candidates that are running. And they want fair elections. They want fair elections for the people of Montana and they want fair elections for all candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury found Wittich:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Failed to maintain and preserve records of his campaign contributions from his 2010 primary election.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Illegally accepted and received corporate contributions from his 2010 primary election.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Failed to report all contributions, including coordinated in-kind contributions, in his 2010 primary election.<\/p>\n

Wittich, who earlier in the day told jurors that Motl\u2019s lawsuit against him \u201cbesmirched\u201d his family\u2019s name and \u201csmacked of McCarthyism,\u201d was defiant after Anaconda Judge Ray Dayton read the jury\u2019s 10-2 verdict against him in Lewis and Clark County District Court in Helena.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Wittich declined to answer questions from reporters who gathered around the courtroom bar to listen to his prepared statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was a bad day for freedom of speech, and freedom of association,\u201d Wittich told reporters as he stood next to his lawyer, Quentin Rhoades. \u201cMontana is the only state that gives one unelected man the right to initiate a political campaign violation complaint, investigate it, rule on it, bring it to court, support it through his own opinion, and then determine the penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gene Jarussi, the Billings-based attorney who represented Motl\u2019s office in the more than two-year-old lawsuit, said he wasn\u2019t surprised by the jury\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly felt that case went in well, is consistent with the evidence,\u201d Jarussi said, \u201cThis is a topic for which reasonable people can disagree. To have 10 out of 12 [jurors], I think, speaks volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Motl\"<\/a>

Kimberly Reed<\/p>

Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl.<\/p><\/div>\n

Friday began with additional witness testimony from Wittich, who was emotional on the witnesses stand as he talked about the toll the campaign finance litigation took on him and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see my name would be besmirched,\u201d Wittich said during testimony of finding out he was under investigation. \u201cI could see my campaign would be delegitimized. That my voice would attempted to be gagged and silenced on important policy matters. I could see it was going to have a huge impact on me and an emotional\u00a0toll on my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before\u00a0the start of the jury trial portion of the lawsuit, Dayton issued a partial summary judgment finding that Wittich had violated Montana\u2019s campaign finance laws in three other areas.<\/p>\n

Dayton ruled in a March 22 order that the \u201cundisputed facts\u201d showed Wittich:<\/p>\n

\u2666 Bought campaign materials without using his designated campaign account and wrote checks on behalf of the campaign he did not report.<\/p>\n

\u2666 Failed to report a debt.<\/p>\n

\u2666\u00a0Failed to report the names of individuals who contributed more than $35 to his campaign at two separate events.<\/p>\n

While this jury trial phase is over, the lawsuit is not yet settled.<\/p>\n

Dayton still has to rule on the\u00a0quid pro quo <\/em>corruption allegation, which remains unresolved.<\/p>\n

The quid<\/em>\u2014or the value of the in-kind contributions Wittich received from National Right to Work Committee-backed groups in 2010\u2014was settled by the jury on Friday.<\/p>\n

Jurors ruled that the total value of the services Wittich illegally received from nonprofit political groups who campaigned on his behalf amounted to $19,599.<\/p>\n

Now the court will determine whether there was a\u00a0quo\u2014<\/em>or reciprocation by Wittich for the services those groups provided.<\/p>\n

Motl said Judge Dayton has the quid<\/em> based on Friday\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has money that was placed into Mr. Wittich\u2019s hands through illegal sources,\u201d Motl said. \u201cThe judge will have to find a quo. He\u2019ll have to find that Mr. Wittich\u2019s actions were either corruption, or the appearance of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motl said given the extent of the defense Wittich lodged in this case, a finding that there was quid pro quo <\/em>corruption in Wittich\u2019s case could have major impacts on Montana\u2019s campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be pretty hard for somebody to criticize that decision,\u201d Motl said. \u201cThis case could not have been more contested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Montana Free Press is a statewide, independent, nonprofit source for in-depth Montana news, information and analysis. Visit montanafreepress.org<\/a> for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HELENA \u2014 It took a jury of six men and six women four hours Friday to find that Bozeman Republican lawmaker Art Wittich illegally coordinated with non-profit third-party political groups during his 2010 primary election campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":11320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2303,297,2521,3988],"class_list":["post-11319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-art-wittich","tag-gene-jarussi","tag-jonathan-motl","tag-quentin-rhoades","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}