Filner's Unkind Durkee

San Diego Democratic congressman Bob Filner, in a hurry to close out his old House campaign finance account so he can get on with his run for mayor against GOP city councilman Carl DeMaio, may soon catch a break. That’s according to a statement by Filner’s campaign, filed online last week with the Federal Election Commission. The story began two months ago, when federal regulators wrote to the Filner campaign saying that unspecified “problems concerning certain information disclosed by your committee” were holding up Filner’s efforts to shut down the account. Some speculated that the legal woes of the congressman’s former treasurer, Kinde Durkee, who pled guilty to charges relating to her embezzlement of funds from many of her clients, were to blame.

Filner’s congressional office failed to return several phone calls about the matter, but a statement by his committee, posted online by the Federal Elections Commission on June 27, hints at the problem. “The treasurer for Filner for Congress attended the annual conference of California political treasurers (California Political Treasurers Association) June 20 24, 2012,” the note says. “At that meeting several of the attendees said that they had been told by others involved in the California Superior Court case against the Durkee firm that the court is very close to returning the funds that remained in affected PAC bank accounts at the time they were frozen.

“If this is in fact true, there is a possibility that Filner for Congress would receive $288.17 back from the superior court. It is rumored this might occur before the first of August. If the funds are received back from the superior court the PAC will be taking steps to disburse those funds and then re-zero out the bank account and once again request the FEC designate the committee as terminated.”