WASHINGTON — The aggressive Democratic fund-raiser behind last year's Buddhist temple benefit featuring Vice President Al Gore acted to conceal temple political donations as early as 1993, according to records and testimony that reveal a more extensive history of temple money-laundering than was previously known.
A federal grand jury is investigating fund-raiser Maria Hsia and the temple's potentially illegal contributions, including a $5,000 donation last October to Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.), The Times has learned.
And Hsia has been singled out as one of the initial targets of the recently reorganized Justice Department task force investigating alleged campaign-finance abuses, sources confirm.
Hsia not only helped arrange for the Hsi Lai Temple to provide the $5,000 Kennedy contribution, according to records turned over to congressional investigators, but she also was one of five straw donors who served as conduits for the temple's hidden donation. Among the donors was Donald E. Burns, a Los Angeles attorney and former California secretary of transportation who, like the others, was reimbursed with a $1,000 check from the temple.
The disclosures demonstrate that questionable political fund-raising by the Hacienda Heights temple extended well beyond its controversial role in the 1996 Gore campaign luncheon that brought in about $140,000 for the Democratic National Committee. The temple, as a tax-exempt religious institution, is prohibited from making campaign contributions.
In addition to the Patrick Kennedy donation, records show, the temple used straw donors to disguise $106,500 in contributions to the DNC, $10,000 to state Assembly candidate Julia Wu, $8,000 to Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, $5,500 to Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and $900 to Los Angeles County Assessor Kenneth P. Hahn. Sen. Kennedy and Hahn are Democrats, Wu and Knabe are Republicans.
Hsia, a 46-year-old Arcadia immigration consultant, personally served as a straw donor for the temple's $500 contribution to California's then-Secretary of State March Fong Eu in 1993 and for $1,500 of the temple's donations to Knabe in 1996, according to bank and federal election records.
Recent grand jury testimony, sources say, has focused on Hsia and her long relationship with the temple, her campaign fund-raising in the Asian American community dating to the mid-1980s and her knowledge of campaign finance regulations.
