David Riley

@rilzd

The chairman of the Monroe County Republican Committee said Wednesday that his party is digging through donation records to determine whether it needs to return or redirect any contributions connected to a public corruption scandal.

That's a shift from Tuesday, when GOP Chairman Bill Reilich said he didn't expect the party to return money. At the time, he said most donations from people or organizations tied to the local development corporation case preceded his time as chairman, before any indication they might be improper, and that the money had likely been spent by now.

On Wednesday, Reilich said that he hadn't read the latest plea deal in the case before he had been asked about the contributions a day earlier. Tuesday's events were the first indication there might be anything wrong with these donations, he said.

“If at the end of the day there are dollars that came in and they were less than honorable, we’ll refund them, donate them,” Reilich said.

Lynch could get up to 7 years in LDC case

Concerns about the local development corporations, or LDCs, have mounted for years. Tens of thousands of dollars in donations from people connected with the LDCs also flowed into local political coffers — mainly to the GOP — before and after Reilich became chairman in 2008.

Questions intensified this week after businessman Daniel Lynch admitted in a plea deal Tuesday that he helped to orchestrate a bid-rigging scheme through the LDCs and profited from inflated contracts for work on county technology projects.

Lynch also admitted that some money stolen through this scheme was later donated to the county GOP's housekeeping committee and the Friends of Maggie Brooks political committee, among other organizations.

Brooks, a Republican, was county executive from 2004 to the end of last year.

Reilich defended his handling of the matter and said the party in 2012 returned a $10,000 donation from a company founded by Lynch as soon as state investigators asked for records of contributions associated with Lynch.

“We said, 'We don’t want to be associated with that at all,' ” Reilich said.

But campaign finance records show many more political contributions tied to Lynch.

LDC boards agree to dissolve themselves

The same company, Treadstone Development Corp., also gave the GOP's housekeeping or campaign accounts $5,000 in 2009, $2,000 in 2011 and $3,000 in 2012.

Lynch himself gave $47,000 to the Republican housekeeping committee from 2006 to 2011, and more than $12,000 to Brooks' political committee from 2006 to 2010.

The GOP also received more than $30,000 from a subcontractor named in Lynch's plea deal as a vehicle for donating stolen money to political campaigns.

A local Democratic leader called on the GOP Wednesday to return any money pilfered from county government.

"The Republican Committee must do the right thing and not sit on this stolen money," said Jamie Romeo, chairwoman of the Monroe County Democratic Committee, in a statement.

Reilich shot back by accusing county Democrats, who have long criticized the LDCs, of hypocrisy. He noted that they received a combined $4,500 in 2009 and 2010 from Navitech Services Corp.

The company is a central LDC contractor that Lynch formed and from which he profited.

"The Monroe County Democrat Committee is the only political organization that has taken donations directly from Navitech," Reilich said in a statement. "I would hope that Ms. Romeo would take her own advice and refund or donate the implicated funds.”

The political donations described in Lynch's plea deal came through an unnamed employee at Catalog and Commerce Solutions, or CCS — a Pittsford web-development company that was involved in the same county contract as Lynch.

Andreatta: Lynch plea reveals pay-to-play

CCS directly donated $31,000 to the county GOP's housekeeping and campaign committees between 2006 and early 2012, according to state campaign finance records. But it's not clear whether or not these are the contributions referenced in the plea deal.

The company also gave Friends of Maggie Brooks $5,000 in 2008.

Brooks and Dawn Staub, the treasurer listed for Brooks' campaign account, did not respond Tuesday to emails requesting comment.

Also in his plea agreement, Lynch admitted conspiring with an employee at Toshiba Business Solutions to use county funds to pay for a "chalet" at a Senior PGA Championship golf tournament in 2008 at Oak Hill Country Club.

Toshiba, too, widely donated to political campaigns from 2007 to 2013. Locally, that included a little more than $73,000 to the county Republicans, with the most recent donation in 2013, and just over $4,000 to Friends of Maggie Brooks.

While allegations about Toshiba and CCS were laid out in an indictment released in late 2013, Reilich said Tuesday's plea deal was the first indication he saw of potential problems involving the companies, and that the party is now researching past donations.

“We’re digging through years of records to find out now what we’re learning, but we had no knowledge prior,” he said.

If the party decides that any donations were untoward, it's not immediately clear how it might handle them. The money likely can't be returned to its original source, Reilich said; the GOP will look into how best to redirect it.

Meanwhile, Reilich recalled how his party dealt with a $10,000 donation from Treadstone, a company Lynch led, in 2010.

Treadstone originally gave the money to Brooks' campaign committee, Reilich said. The contribution exceeded limits, and when a party staffer explained this, Treadstone directed the money to the GOP housekeeping account instead, Reilich said.

Another guilty plea in county LDC case

Two years later, the Attorney General's Office asked the GOP for records of donations associated with Lynch during its investigation of the LDCs. At that time, the party refunded the contribution to Treadstone, Reilich said.

In her statement, Romeo also credited Republican County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo for working with county legislators, including Democrats, to establish a county Office of Public Integrity to restore public trust.

"It is time for Mr. Reilich and the county Republicans to do their part as well," Romeo said.

DRILEY@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by staff writer David Andreatta.

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