DOVER, DE - The Delaware Department of Elections has allegedly uncovered violations of Delaware law after a forensic review of gubernatorial candidate and current lieutenant governor Bethany Hall-Long’s campaign finances.
In January of 2024, the Department of Elections hired Forensic Litigation Consultants LLC of Pennsylvania to launch a review in an apparent response to pervading scrutiny surrounding Hall-Long’s campaign finances. According to that forensic review obtained by WBOC, Hall-Long’s campaign filed 13 amended campaign finance reports with the state in November of 2023.
These amended reports showed previously undisclosed cash payments made to Hall-Long’s husband and then-campaign treasurer Dana Long, according to fraud examiner and former FBI senior executive Jeffrey Lampinski. In its amended filing, the campaign asserted these payments were reimbursements for loans Hall-Long had made to the campaign. In total, Hall-Long had loaned her campaign $308,134 and had been reimbursed $206,985, according to the amended filing.
“Hall-Long has personally loaned the campaign $101,149.35 more than she has been repaid,” the campaign committee said at the time.
However, in his forensic review, Lampinski finds that the supposed loan repayments from the campaign committee to the Longs is just over $33,000 more than the loans they gave to the campaign. In other words, Lampinski says, the Longs owe $33,178.65.
“By category, the Longs advanced $64,500 in cash to the campaign, wrote $28,545.50 in personal checks against campaign expenses, and charged $172,869.31 in campaign expenses to personal credit cards,” Lampinski writes in his report. “Their substantiated advances to the campaign total $265,914.81. They disbursed themselves $299,093.46.”
Lampinski goes on to say he cannot say why his findings differ so significantly from Hall-Long’s campaign, which said the campaign’s account had been fully reconciled.
The report goes on to allege Dana Long wrote four checks to himself but reported they had been written to another person. In all, Lampinski says he found 112 checks Long wrote to himself and one to his wife totaling just under $300,000. 109 of those were not reported in the campaign’s initial finance reports, the forensic review says.
Lampinski also says Hall-Long’s campaign never reported the payments to the Longs as campaign expenditures, as required by Delaware law. In an interview with Dana Long, Lampinski says Long told him “he’d never read the Delaware Elections Code and was unaware a loan reimbursement payment met the definition of an “expenditure” and thereby was to be reported.”
In a statement to WBOC, Hall-Long says she will address her bookkeeping discrepancies head on and maintained her family had loaned more money to her campaign than had been reimbursed, contrary to Lampinski's report. Hall-Long also underscored the fact that the Elections Commissioner had no plans to refer the findings to the Delaware Attorney General.
"Voters want a Governor who will champion their problems like funding strong public education, protecting reproductive freedom, increasing access to affordable healthcare, and fighting to improve the quality of life for working families," Hall-Long said. "If I am elected Governor, I will work tirelessly every single day to do just that."
Hall-Long continues: "I'm proud of the growing support that I have received along with the full endorsements of Governor John Carney, members of the State House & State Senate, the Delaware AFL-CIO, the Delaware State Education Association, and most recently the Democratic State Party of Delaware."
Hall-Long faces challengers Matt Meyer and Collin O'Mara on September 10th's Democratic gubernatorial primary.
A copy of Lampisnki’s review has been attached to this article.
