AUGUSTA — Former Biddeford mayor and state representative Joanne Twomey will head to Augusta on Wednesday for a meeting with the Maine Ethics Commission to discuss whether she violated the rules of the Maine Clean Election Act during her campaign for Senate District 32.

If the commission finds that she did violate the rules, she may be ordered to repay campaign funds, and could face additional fines.

Twomey, who lost the Democratic nomination for Senate District 32 to her opponent, incumbent Sen. Susan Deschambault, in the June 14 primary, is accused of retroactively paying a campaign staffer, Perry Aberle, with money from the MCEA fund prior to actually becoming a certified MCEA candidate.

An expenditure report filed with the MCEA states that, on April 28, Twomey paid Aberle $2,500 in MCEA funds. The Ethics Commission states that $1,585 of those funds were paid retroactively for work Aberle performed prior to April 21, when Twomey was formally certified as a MCEA candidate.

Twomey was also granted an additional $10,000 in MCEA funding for her campaign on April 21.

MCEA rules specify that candidates may only use seed money to pay for goods and services subsequent to registration and prior to qualifying for public funds as certified MCEA candidates.

According to Ethics Commission Executive Director Jonathan Wayne, Senate candidates may collect up to $1,500 in seed money, but Twomey only elected to take $120 in seed money from the MCEA fund. Twomey, however, asserts that she was only offered $120 in seed money.

The Ethics Commission will also evaluate whether Twomey should be penalized $200 for filing a campaign finance report later than the deadline of June 3.

Twomey said on Monday that she had done nothing wrong. She said she did wait to pay Aberle for his work until she received funding from MCEA, but stressed there were no retroactive payments using MCEA funds.

“That’s not true,” Twomey said when asked if she made any retroactive payments to Aberle. “I didn’t pay anyone ’til got the money. What the dispute is, is what you can charge (and) when, and that is what the meeting is about.”

“(The Ethics Commission) asked (Aberle) for a breakdown of everything he’s done on my campaign, and I didn’t see his report, and all I got is a call saying that we’re going to have a meeting,” Twomey said. “I didn’t pay him before I got the money … that’s what we’re going to discuss is that report, and I think it’s going to be fine.”

If the Ethics Commission determines that Twomey knowingly paid Aberle retroactively for his services, she may be ordered to repay the $1,585 back to the MCEA fund, and could be slapped with an additional civil fine for violating the seed money statute.

According to MCEA regulations, a person who violates the statutes could be subject to a fine of up to $10,000 per violation. On Wednesday, the commission will discuss the possibility of assessing Twomey a fine of $250 to $500 for violating the seed money statute.

Wayne said Monday that he is not sure how the Ethics Commission will deal with Twomey’s situation once they sit down to discuss the matter.

“I want to be really clear that I don’t know how the commission will be viewing this. There may be no monetary consequences at all,” Wayne said. “They may view this as an understandable error that has no penalty or repayment obligation.”

Wayne said it could be that Twomey may have made an honest mistake in retroactively paying Aberle with the funds, and that she may not have been aware that her actions were against the rules. It will be up to the commission to determine her punishment, if any, once it hears from Twomey herself.

“The commission has a great deal of discretion as to what the outcome is, and I don’t know how seriously they will view this, especially since they haven’t heard from the candidate herself,” Wayne said.

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.