Christine O'Donnell - Financial Issues

Financial Issues

In October 2007 O'Donnell stopped paying the mortgage of her Wilmington house and the mortgage company obtained a judgment against her in the spring of 2008 for $90,000. The house was to be sold at a sheriff's auction in August 2008 when she sold it the month prior to her Senate campaign attorney who was also her boyfriend at the time.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filed a lien in 2010, on the house that O'Donnell had not owned for two years, claiming that O'Donnell owed $1,100 in back taxes and penalties as a result of an audit. O’Donnell posted documents on her website showing that the lien was a mistake, as the audit was not yet complete and there was not yet any final determination of whether she owed any further taxes or not, and noted that the IRS agent handling the matter claimed he was perplexed by the agency's actions. In campaign finance reports, she listed herself as self-employed.

After the September 14, 2010 primary, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleged that O'Donnell made false statements on Federal Elections Commission filings and illegally used more than $20,000 of her campaign funds as "her very own personal piggy bank" by claiming campaign expenses during a time when she was not a candidate in 2009. CREW filed a complaint on September 20, 2010 with the FEC and asked the U.S. Attorney in Delaware to investigate these allegations. O'Donnell responded to the accusations, telling reporters there was "no truth to it. I personally have not misused the campaign funds" and refused to answer specific questions about her finances when asked by CNN. In December 2010, the AP reported that federal authorities had opened a criminal investigation into CREW's complaint. On July 15, 2011 the Federal US Attorney's Office announced it had closed the criminal investigation of Christine O'Donnell's campaign finances and has referred the case to the FEC for administrative enforcement. Another FEC complaint filed against the O'Donnell campaign by CREW for improper coordination of events and expenses between O'Donnell's 2010 Primary campaign and the Tea Party Express in California was subsequently dismissed by the FEC when the FEC Commissioner's vote was tied 3-3 on whether to proceed with the case, even through the FEC's own lawyers believed that there was sufficient evidence for the FEC to proceed to investigate these allegations against the O'Donnell campaign and the Tea Party Express.

O'Donnell's year-end campaign financial report to the Federal Election Commission reported that her campaign returned $56,124 of campaign donations between October 2010 and December 2010, and had still retained $654,336.