Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby, who earlier this month admitted using political contributions to pay for a hotel stay during a spat with his wife, spent nearly $8,000 from his campaign account in the last months of 2007 on unexplained charges, campaign finance records show.
The spending, which included more than $1,300 in payments to himself, occurred during a period when Norby moved out of his home because of marital problems and was living in a hotel and, briefly, his office in the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.
Norby recently acknowledged that a $340 hotel charge -- labeled a "study of homeless and hotel families" on his campaign committee report -- was a weeklong stay for himself. He repaid the money to his campaign account when asked about it by The Times.
His unexplained charges labeled as office and meeting expenses were far larger than those of his four colleagues on the Board of Supervisors during the same period. They were also roughly three times as much as he spent for the same kinds of expenses in the same period a year earlier, the records show.
The charges were made in a non-campaign year when Norby was not up for election; in fact, he is in his final term as a supervisor and must leave office in 2010.
State law prohibits spending campaign money on personal items. No direct evidence has emerged showing that Norby spent the money inappropriately, but the large amount of unidentified expenditures -- and his admission of using campaign funds for living expenses -- has prompted heightened scrutiny and skepticism of his financial disclosure statements.
"He's already shown us a pattern of misusing campaign funds," said Shirley Grindle, the county's campaign finance watchdog and a frequent critic of Norby who has filed enforcement complaints against him in the past. "Mr. Norby seems to have an attitude that he is not required to comply with the law."
In a series of interviews, Norby said the un-itemized charges were for legitimate purposes and denied that any of the money had gone for personal expenses, including hotel stays or rent, beyond what he had already admitted. He said that the expenditures were for lunches, dinners and drinks with staff and community leaders, and for periodicals and other allowable items. He said each individual expense fell below the $100 threshold at which it would have to be disclosed.
