Months After Resignation Massa Still Tickling Campaign Funds

Congressman Eric Massa resigned in March after being accused of sexually harassing some of his male staffers. But he is still spending money from his campaign committee's bank account.

When Massa  first resigned he claimed it was because of his health. Then he claimed that any charges that were being brought up against him were done so because he voted against the House version of Obamacare, the house leadership was using the ethics committee to get back at him. Massa then went on to make other dirty trick charges regarding House leadership which all  turned out to be nonsense.

The charges that did seem real were the ones being made against Massa, that he sexually harassed some of his male staffers, which Massa contended involved only one incident, which he described on the Glenn Beck show as:

Yeah, I did! Not only did I grope him I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday, it was kill the old guy. You can take anything out of context.”

During that interview, Beck smelled a liar, and indeed he showed the world that Massa was telling tall tales. Later the Washington Post laid out the entire Massa harrasment story and it was worse than imagined. But Massa isn't done with the press yet.


His hometown paper,the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle is reporting that despite the fact Massa resigned four months ago, he is till tickling his campaign's bank account:

Former congressman Eric Massa’s campaign committee paid his wife, Beverly, $34,214 between April and the end of June, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Beverly Massa was not paid for her services as campaign treasurer in 2009 or during the first three months of this year.

Gee it sounds as if Massa's wife received the congressional equivalent of $4,000,000 ring Kobe Byrant gave his wife after he got caught having an affair.


Beverly Massa was not the only recipient of campaign funds

Although no longer a public official, Massa continued to charge his campaign committee for his airfare, hotel stays, restaurant tabs, taxi fares and even a TiVo account.

His Manhattan law firm, Dealy and Silberstein, was paid $25,261 in legal fees from April through June.

One could accept the legal fees as legit but TIVO???

Other expenses included stays at a Hilton Hotel and a Marriott in Manhattan, a Homewood Suites in Rochester and a Hampton Inn in Gettysburg, Pa.

Restaurant bills included $350 at Morton’s, a high-end steakhouse in Washington, and $77 for two visits to Tortilla Coast, a popular hangout for Capitol Hill staffers in Washington.

The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, filed a complaint in April because Massa’s campaign committee paid $31,896 to GMAC for a leased vehicle two days before Massa announced he would not seek re-election.

Massa purchased the vehicle on April 27, nine days after the Federal Election Commission received the complaint, according to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.

Although Massa is no longer a candidate and the campaign no longer owns the vehicle, it did pay $683 in vehicle maintenance at Fox Auto in Painted Post on May 18.

Told of the $34,214 in payments to Beverly Massa, Boehm said he may add that issue to his organization’s complaint.

"The rule on that is you are allowed to employ relatives, but it must be for reasonable services rendered,’’ Boehm said.

He said it’s puzzling that if Beverly Massa received no payments for her services in 2009 when the campaign was receiving donations, she would be paid when there was no longer a campaign.

The Massa campaign also had three other people — Jason Powell of Honeoye Falls, Brian Walsh of Washington, D.C., and Dorothy Drahzal of Rochester — on the payroll in the second quarter. 

 It seems as if Massa's corruption goes way beyond sexual harassment.