Ensign resigned from the Senate in May 2011. FEC fines Ensign family $54,000

The Federal Election Commission has fined former Sen. John Ensign and his parents $54,000 for improper severance payments to Cindy Hampton, a former campaign aide who had an extramarital affair with the Nevada Republican.

Ensign, his campaign committee and leadership PAC will pay a civil penalty of $32,000 to the FEC for an “excessive in-kind payment” to Cindy Hampton, the commission announced on Friday.


Michael and Sharon Ensign, the former senator’s parents, will pay an additional $22,000 civil penalty.

( PHOTOS: Scandal pols: Where are they now?)

Hampton was Ensign’s campaign treasurer for his reelection committee and Battle Born PAC when the two began an eight-month affair in December 2007.

Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton’s husband, was deputy chief of staff in Ensign’s Senate office at that time, as well as being the senator’s best friend. The resulting scandal, which exploded into public view in June 2009, led to a lengthy Senate Ethics Committee investigation and criminal probe by the Justice Department, and destroyed Ensign’s once-promising political career. Ensign resigned from the Senate in May 2011.

Ensign fired both Hamptons in April 2008. At the time, Ensign’s parents gave $96,000 as a gift to the Hamptons and their children. Ensign told his father that the money would help the Hamptons “financially transition to their new lives” as the couple returned to Nevada.

( PHOTOS: Top congressional scandals)

Ensign referred to his parent’s gift to the Hamptons as “severance,” both in discussions with his aides and personal notes. Approximately $72,000 was to go to Cindy Hampton for lost pay and health benefits.

But neither Ensign’s reelection committee nor leadership PAC ever disclosed any such payment to Cindy Hampton.

Thus, according to the FEC, Ensign, his reelection committee and Battle Born PAC “knowingly received excessive in-kind contributions” from his parents.

In addition, even after his parents gave the Hamptons $96,000, Ensign was also secretly pressuring Nevada firms to hire Doug Hampton as a lobbyist. Doug Hampton later plead guilty to violating the one-year lobbying ban imposed on former senior congressional aides. Doug Hampton received one-year’s probation for the violations in June 2012.

Ensign has never been charged in the case.