Sacramento Mayor Fined for Yet More Financial Violations

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson just can't seem to keep his financial house in order.  Four years ago he was fined, but not sent to jail, for stealing AmeriCorps funds to pay workers to help with election activities and to wash his car, among many other abuses.  Now a watchdog group has revealed that Johnson didn't report $3.5 million in behests, within the legal time limit, from well-known foundations and corporations in connection with his arena task force and education reform initiatives.

From the Sacramento Bee:

The state's political watchdog group announced Monday it had fined Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson $37,500 for failing to report millions of dollars in donations he solicited for various nonprofit organizations, including his task force charged with developing a financing plan for a new basketball arena.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission said it found 25 cases in which Johnson failed to report what are called behest payments - donations to a nonprofit made at the request of an elected official - within the required 30 days of securing those donations.

Oh, he's understaffed and so sorry for the oversight, and the "error was an unintentional administrative lapse."  Except that the mayor's modus operandi is "anything goes until you get caught."

Here's background information on the AmeriCorps scandal from a Michelle Malkin post from June 2011:

In 2008, the independent inspector general overseeing AmeriCorps, Gerald Walpin, concluded that Johnson and aide Dana Gonzalez had squandered hundreds of thousands of a nearly million-dollar grant earmarked for his nonprofit youth organization, St. HOPE. Based on Walpin's investigation, AmeriCorps' parent organization (the aforementioned CNCS) suspended Johnson and Gonzalez's access to federal funds. [snip]

Johnson didn't get jail time. Instead, the Democratic U.S. attorney in Sacramento cut a cozy settlement deal so Johnson could avoid criminal prosecution. The deal also allowed Johnson to repay just a fraction of the money he siphoned from AmeriCorps coffers for personal gain - and it freed Johnson to receive federal Obama-stimulus money for Sacramento.

Did I mention that Johnson is Democrat education operative Michelle Rhee's husband?  Or that Michelle Obama had possible involvement in the firing of IG Gerald Walpin?  Or that he's been accused of sexually abusing underage girls while in a trusted authority position?

KJ's pattern of behavior indicts him even if the justice system won't.

Read more Ann Kane at Potter Williams Report.