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Community Corner

Many Donovan Supporters Wondering Where Key Figure in Scandal Comes From

Robert Braddock, the candidate's finance director, worked on campaigns in the South, but is virtually unknown in Connecticut.

Since House Speaker Chris Donovan’s congressional campaign finance director, Robert Braddock Jr., , that many of Donovan’s supporters have wondered who Braddock is, the state’s largest newspaper reported Sunday.

According to an article by the Hartford Courant, Braddock, 33, a political unknown in Connecticut, had worked on unsuccessful Democratic campaigns in Georgia and North Carolina before he was hired for a fundraising role in Donovan’s bid for the party nomination for Congress in 5th District.

Among the towns in the 5th Congressional District are Woodbury, , Southbury and .

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Braddock was arrested for accepting $20,000 in campaign contributions by smoke shop owners in the name of other people in order to conceal the identity of the actual donor. Accepting so-called “conduit campaign contributions” is a violation of federal campaign finance laws.

The donor was actually an FBI agent posing as a smoke shop owner, who channeled funds through several co-conspirators to Braddock, according to court affidavits filed in the case.

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Smoke shop owners were actively lobbying against a proposal in the General Assembly to increase taxes and fees on roll-your-own cigarette machines.

News media reports have identified two of the co-conspirators as Ray Soucy, a union figure from Naugatuck, and Paul Rogers, an investor in a Waterbury smoke shop who resides in Middlebury.

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