Capuano Funding Linked to PMA Lobbying Group

US Representative Michael E. Capuano tried to distance himself in March from a potential Capitol Hill scandal, donating to charity $64,500 his campaign committee had collected through a high-powered lobbying firm that is the subject of a federal pay-to-play investigation.

But Capuano has failed to return or give away at least another $47,500 that employees of the firm, PMA Group, and its associates, had given to a separate political action committee that he created in 2005, MASS PAC, according to a Globe analysis.

Asked about the discrepancy, a spokeswoman for his US Senate campaign, Alison Mills, said the failure to scrub the PAC account was an oversight. She said his political staff is now going through records to identify PMA-related contributions to MASS PAC, an entity known as a leadership PAC, which many politicians operate to raise and donate funds to further their political careers and causes they support.

Read more: (Frank Phillips, “Capuano has Funds Linked to Lobbyist,” Boston Globe, 10/25/09)