A Democratic candidate who was running for a seat in the State House last fall representing Casco and Naples could be facing up to $10,000 in fines and misdemeanor charges for failing to repay unspent Clean Election money to the state.

Tom Bossie has yet to repay $4,080 that was due back to the state Dec. 19, according to Paul Lavin, the assistant director at the Maine Ethics Commission.

Bossie denies any wrongdoing. “There were no improprieties at all. It’s all going to be fixed in a couple of days,” he said.

Bossie, who was running for the District 101 seat covering Casco, Naples and Poland, was given a total of $13,362 for his campaign, according to Lavin. Of that, he spent all but $4,080, Lavin said.

Lavin said the commission has tried to contact Bossie 10 times through e-mail, phone messages and certified letters. Each time he tells the commission he will return the money but never does, according to Lavin.

“He’s just been telling us what we want to hear and does what he wants,” Lavin said.

Since Bossie has been uncooperative, the commission is next going to subpoena his bank records in an attempt to figure out what happened to the money. The commission’s vote to subpoena the records was delayed, however, due to Wednesday’s storm.

“We’re beyond the wondering stage. We’re demanding to know where this moneyis and why it hasn’t been returned,” Lavin said.

Bossie declined to be interviewed for this story and instead sent an e-mail in response to the accusations.

“The discrepancy lies with the ‘authorized spending’ of the clean election funds. These are funds that we were authorized to spend. The ‘unauthorized amount’ has been returned to the ethics commission and was duly applied,” Bossie said. “The commission and I are in touch. In the past few days I’ve spoken to [Commission Director] Jonathan Wayne and also with [Attorney General] Steven Rowe about this.”

“This is a major violation, punishable with fines up to $10,000 as well as misdemeanor charges,” Lavin said. “We just want the taxpayers’ money back. But even if he gives the money back immediately, he has still violated the act and can still be punished if the ethics commission so chooses. But returning the money now is certainly the right thing to do. It’s a step in the right direction.”

Bossie is also being accused by the Maine Republican Party of using Clean Elections money to pay for newspaper advertising for his mortgage business.

Beyond Bossie’s failure to repay his Clean Elections money, the Maine Republican Party has requested that the ethics commission open an investigation into a newspaper ad they say Bossie paid for with Clean Elections money.

Lavin confirmed that the commission received the request last week and that the matter will be taken up at a meeting of the commission in April.

Dan Schulberth, political director for the Maine Republican Party, accuses Bossie of using $72 of Clean Elections money to purchase an ad in The Bridgton News for his mortgage business.

Schulberth said Tuesday that Bossie paid for two quarter-page ads published Sept. 7, 2006 and Sept. 21, 2006. One bill came to $120, the other $192. When Republican activists saw the different prices for the same-size ads, Shulberth said they inquired with the newspaper and found the $192 price possibly included a separate ad for Bossie’s business.

“It’s pretty simple: We noticed inconsistencies when going through newspaper ads that Mr. Bossie spent money on and we’re asking the ethics commission to look into it. We know what we think happened. We think he used public money to pay for a personal ad,” Shulberth said.

Bossie flatly denied any wrongdoing saying, “As for The Bridgton News, all political ads were paid in advance with clean election funds. All other business ads were paid for by the business.”