Donors to Gov. Gina Raimondo and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello listed Goldberg Law Offices as employer instead of the Foxy Lady and other clubs.

Mysterious errors in campaign finance records concealed the source of thousands of dollars in political donations from the Providence strip-club industry to Gov. Gina Raimondo and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello.

Instead of listing their actual employers — which include the Foxy Lady, the Cadillac Lounge and Club Desire — the series of donations stretching from 2014 to 2018 listed a high-powered lobbying firm, the Goldberg Law Offices. A lobbyist at that firm, Robert Goldberg, also worked on behalf of the strip-club industry.

Goldberg said he did not know why donations from people involved in the strip-club industry — and not, in fact, employed by his firm — listed his firm as their employer.

“I have no explanation of that whatsoever,” Goldberg said.

He added in an email that “it has never been my practice to bundle donations.”

The donors themselves either could not be reached for comment or declined to comment.

Goldberg worked for several years as the lobbyist for the Rhode Island Entertainment Association, a group made up of leaders from various strip clubs in Rhode Island, according to lobbying records. He was last paid by them in 2015, at $25,000 for the year, according to the disclosure reports.

The errors raise questions about the working relationship between a high-powered lobbyist and an industry he represented, and illuminate the many connections between the strip-club industry and the halls of power in Rhode Island — some more clear than others.

“Without a record, it’s difficult to infer whether the Goldberg Law Offices played a role in facilitating these donations, but it’s odd that the name of the law firm would be listed as the employer when that same law firm was serving as a lobbyist for the industry in which they worked,” said John Marion, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Rhode Island.

In September 2015, for example, Gerard C. DiSanto II donated $1,000 to the campaign of Raimondo, a Democrat, according to Board of Elections records. His employer was listed as the Goldberg Law Office; DiSanto, however, is the president of Club Desire, a strip club at 1 Franklin Square, in Providence, which is owned by his father, Gerard C. DiSanto, according to Journal archives and city records as of 2018. In 2018, the records show that the younger DiSanto donated another $1,000 to Raimondo, also with the Goldberg Law Office listed as his employer.

(Some donations are listed as Goldberg Law Office and some as Goldberg Law Offices, but all had the address of Goldberg’s firm as their employer’s address.)

Kate Ramstad, the finance director for Raimondo’s campaign, said in an email that the donations from DiSanto were received without a contribution form, which would have listed his employer.

“Our office looked him up in the [Board of Elections] system and found that Gerard C. DiSanto of Goldberg Law Offices made contributions to another candidate the prior year,” Ramstad said. “We used the same employer information consistent with this previous filing.”

That appears to refer to a $100 donation to Mattiello made by Gerard C. DiSanto, listing his employer as the Goldberg Law Office.

But neither of the DiSantos worked for Goldberg. And the younger DiSanto, under the name Gerard C. DiSanto II, had also donated to other candidates under the name of his club, Desire, in 2005 and 2014, according to campaign finance records.

Given the choice of listing Goldberg and Desire as the employer for the mystery Gerard C. DiSanto II donor, the campaign chose the lobbying firm.

“When we researched our donor in the BOE database, we clicked on the file for Gerard C. DiSanto, not Gerard C. DiSanto II. There was only one donation listed from Mr. DiSanto, and his employer was listed as Goldberg Law Offices,” Ramstad said.

A few hours after The Providence Journal requested comment from Raimondo campaign officials, the contribution listings were fixed to reflect the younger DiSanto’s employer as Club Desire.

Neither DiSanto responded to requests for comment relayed through the club, an email to a manager, or phone calls through phone numbers associated with them.

Ramstad said Raimondo has no memory of having met Gerard C. DiSanto II.

Gerard DiSanto is also listed as having donated $1,000 to the campaign of J. Aaron Regunberg, who was running for lieutenant governor. DiSanto’s employer is listed as the Goldberg Law Office.

“I have no idea how that error occurred, or a specific memory of how the donation came to be made, other than that I know we had a big fundraising event on March 28th (maybe an envelope or compliance card got mixed up at the door),” Regunberg said in an email. “I don't remember meeting either DiSanto at the event. In any event, thank you again for helping me correct this, as I'm committed to transparency, and will be amending that past report today.”

The errant donations began in February 2014, with 12 donations in the same amount and on the same day to Mattiello, who was on the cusp of becoming the House speaker. Managers and owners of the Foxy Lady, employees of the Cadillac Lounge, and DiSanto, of Club Desire, were all listed as having donated to Mattiello and working for Goldberg.

Dick Shappy, the owner of the Cadillac Lounge, said he was not sure how this happened, and that he “never talked politics” with Goldberg. Shappy also is listed as having donated $100 the same day, under the name of his car business, Dick Shappy Classic Cars.

Mattiello said in an interview that it probably was his wife who input the campaign donation information, from forms that he believes the donors “evidently” submitted incorrectly. His wife would not have known that those people are associated with the strip-club industry, he said.

Mattiello called it a “simple mistake.” Asked whether he would return the donations, he said: “Why?”

“There’s nothing inappropriate about it,” he said. “I was happy to accept the contribution.”

Mattiello also received a donation in 2015 from Foxy Lady owner Thomas Tsoumas and a donation in 2018 from Gerard C. DiSanto with their employers listed as the Goldberg Law Offices, Board of Elections records show.

Strip clubs are best known for their contributions to glitzy nightlife, but they often have business before the government and the courts, whether that’s labor or tax laws or licensing matters.

In December, for example, the Foxy Lady was shuttered by the Providence Board of Licenses after three dancers were arrested on prostitution charges. But the club fought back, winning permission to remain open while a long-term legal fight takes place in appeals to the state Department of Business Regulation and the state Supreme Court.

The state Supreme Court hears appeals of decisions to revoke adult entertainment licenses.

Maureen McKenna Goldberg, the lobbyist Robert Goldberg’s wife, is a justice on the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

She did not recuse herself when the Foxy Lady matter came before the court, said Craig Berke, a spokesman for the state courts.

"Her husband has had no relationship with the [strip-club] association for several years and he does not represent the Foxy Lady,” Berke said. “She sees no reason to recuse from the case.”

Given an outline of the situation, a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law differed.

“Prudence would suggest recusal here,” said Peter Margulies.

The Rhode Island Code of Judicial Conduct says a judge should recuse if a person’s spouse “has an economic interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding.”

Marion, of Common Cause, said that this wasn’t true of McKenna Goldberg because her husband’s firm no longer lobbies for the strip-club industry. But, Marion noted, there’s a catchall in the code of conduct that says judges should disqualify themselves when their impartiality might “reasonably be questioned.”

“At the end of the day, it is up to Justice McKenna Goldberg whether her husband's past business relationship meets this reasonableness standard,” Marion said in an email. “We think it's a close call.”

The Foxy Lady also has a familial connection with Raimondo’s office.

One of its founders was James DeRentiis, a former farrier and Foster tax assessor who died in 2010. His widow, Dawn, now is one of the owners of the club, according to corporate records and her attorney, Artin Coloian.

James DeRentiis’ son, who goes by a slightly different spelling of his last name — James DeRentis — is married to Brett Smiley, Raimondo’s chief of staff.

Smiley and DeRentis said they do not have and have never had any ownership interest in the club, and that they had no contact with Dawn DeRentiis, who also goes by her married name, Dawn Taffurelli.

However, James DeRentis is Facebook friends with Taffurelli, his father's second wife, and when she posted a “Foxy Strong” image superimposed over the Providence skyline while the club was shut down, DeRentis “liked” it. He said in an interview that he thought the city’s decision to shut the club down was unnecessary, and was signaling his support for that position.

“Liking something on Facebook is not maintaining contact,” he said, calling efforts to connect the Foxy Lady to his family part of what “breeds cynicism in this state.”

Smiley — who received $1,000 in campaign funds from Dawn DeRentiis in 2014 during a mayoral campaign, according to Board of Elections records — said in a statement that he hadn’t been in contact with her in many years, and he has no role in the Foxy Lady’s appeals before the state Department of Business Regulation.

“Jim and I have never had any ownership stake in the Foxy Lady and have had no involvement with the business whatsoever,” he said.

— With reports by Journal political writer Katherine Gregg