WASHINGTON — For a man with a gambling problem, Russell Roberts had what seemed like the perfect job. He worked as the campaign treasurer for Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), which gave him access to lots of money.
From 1994 until he was caught last year, Roberts embezzled $617,563, wiring money directly from the congressman's campaign office to riverboat casinos in Indiana.
Lydia Percival Meuret, a Texas mother of three, was afraid to tell her husband she had racked up too much credit card debt. So to pay her family's household bills, she began embezzling money from a political action committee for minority candidates run by Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas).
Meuret, the PAC's executive director, stole more than $120,000 over the course of three years.
"Had there been any checks or balances, it probably never would have happened," she said recently, as she prepared to begin serving a 15-month prison term. "I would just write myself checks."
From Hawaii to Delaware, more and more candidates and political action committees are becoming victims of embezzlers. As record amounts of money are donated to political groups, the temptation to steal is greater than ever.
House and Senate campaigns have become multimillion-dollar enterprises, but the money going in and out is often controlled by one person -- usually a trusted aide or friend of the candidate who works as the campaign treasurer. And financial controls, commonplace in business, are frequently nonexistent in the world of politics.
Campaign embezzlers can go undetected for years. And when they're caught, it's a problem members of Congress and political committees would rather not publicize.
"You know how senators are. They don't like to talk about it," said Calvert Chipchase III, the campaign treasurer for Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii). "Typically, these people are their friends and supporters, and they trusted them."
Chipchase got the job after the former treasurer, Theresa Blanco, spent about $100,000 in campaign funds for her personal use. A good friend of the senator's, she repaid the money. The campaign did not press charges.
With burgeoning campaign coffers and little oversight, the number of federal campaign embezzlement cases has increased in the last few years, election lawyers say.
