Twardy Report On Chris Donovan Cost $120,000, Including Accounting Report

The internal investigation of Chris Donovan’s campaign for Congress, compiled by former U.S. Attorney Stanley Twardy, cost $120,000, the campaign said Monday.

The Twardy report itself cost more than $84,000, plus more than $35,000 for forensic accounting and computer analysis by the well-known firm of Blum Shapiro & Co.

“That is the bill. That is it,” said Donovan’s campaign manager, Tom Swan. “We have no reason to believe there would be any additional cost associated with it.”

The campaign did not pay a retainer, which is the traditional sum of money that is paid at the start of the engagement with an attorney or a law firm.

“We have paid the bulk of it, and we’re working on the final piece,” said Swan, declining to immediately reveal the precise totals because of the competitiveness of the three-way primary.

Donovan is locked in a race against former state Rep. Elizabeth Esty of Cheshire and political newcomer Dan Roberti of Kent in the August 14 primary in the 5th Congressional District that stretches from Simsbury to Danbury to Salisbury. All of the campaigns have been closely watching the others to find out how much cash they still have on hand for the all-important television advertising blitz in the campaign’s final days.

Former state Democratic chairman John Droney and other Hartford area attorneys had said that such a report by well-paid lawyers could cost $250,000 or more, but Swan noted that Droney had once represented Roberti’s father – a former state legislator and now high-powered Washington lobbyist – in a criminal case. The elder Roberti was acquitted in August 1992. Droney said that he knows all three Democratic candidates, but that he was not backing any of them in the race.

The spending on the campaigns has increased sharply recently as the 30-year-old Roberti has loaned $830,000 to his campaign, according to public records. Esty, a former legislator and Harvard graduate whose husband oversees the state’s environmental protection department, has loaned $525,000 to her campaign.

“You have two candidates trying to buy an election,” Swan told Capitol Watch on Monday.

The exact extent of Roberti’s wealth is currently unknown because he has not yet filed a financial disclosure report for candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives. He has received an extension until Monday, August 13 – the day before the primary.

Esty has raised the most money in individual contributions of all seven candidates running in the primaries for Congress – three Democrats and four Republicans. She had raised $1.55 million as of July 25, while Roberti had $1.16 million and Donovan had raised $866,000.

Esty had $857,000 on hand, compared to $380,000 on hand for Roberti and $377,000 for Donovan as of July 25, according to public records.

When asked if $119,000 was a fair amount to pay for the Twardy Report and the accounting work, Swan said, ”It is what it is. It is more than what had been estimated to us, but there’s no doubt in my mind that people did the work that they’re billing for.’’

The $119,000 was not reported on Donovan’s latest campaign filing to the Federal Election Commission as of July 25 because “we did not pay anything until the post-25th filing deadline,” Swan said.

As such, the campaign will file an amended report. “That happens all the time,” Swan said.

On the day that the Twardy Report was released, Twardy himself said that he did not know the cost because he had not added up the bill. Donovan’s campaign officials said they, too, did not know the cost at that point.

Twardy said that nine employees from the high-powered firm of Day Pitney worked on the report, including three who conducted interviews and six who studied about 165,000 pages of emails, along with computer files.

“He hadn’t put together a bill,” Swan said. “I had no idea how much it would cost until the third week in July. Nobody knew how much it was.’’