Delaware gubernatorial candidate calls for investigation into primary rival’s campaign finances

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The chief executive of Delaware’s largest county is calling for a federal investigation into the campaign finances of the state’s lieutenant governor, who is his chief rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer held a brief news conference Monday to respond to a forensic review commissioned by the state Department of Elections that uncovered significant improprieties in the campaign finances of Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long.

“Delawareans, all of us, deserve to be able to trust our elected officials and know that rules and laws apply to everyone, and apply to everyone equally,” Meyer said, decrying what he called Hall-Long’s “near-decade long illegal conduct.”

The forensic review, conducted by a retired FBI senior executive who is a certified fraud examiner, found that Hall-Long and her husband had received payments totaling $33,000 more than what she purportedly loaned to her campaign. It also found that Hall-Long’s husband and former campaign treasurer, Dana Long, wrote four campaign checks to himself but falsely reported that they had been written to someone else.

Jeffrey Lampinski, the fraud examiner, also determined that, from January 2016 to December 2023, Dana Long wrote 112 checks from his wife’s campaign committee account to himself or to cash, and one check to his wife. The checks totaled just under $300,000 and should have been reported as campaign expenditures. Instead, Lampinski found, 109 were never reported in initial finance reports, and the other four, payable to Dana Long, were reported as being made to someone else.

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