The Maryland state senator under federal investigation has been the subject of repeated ethics complaints for not filing required financial disclosure forms, records show.
Sen. Ulysses Currie failed to file annual disclosure forms in 1988, 1995 and 2003 and was twice officially reprimanded by the state?s ethics commission, according to lettersdocumenting the complaints between the Prince George?s County Democrat and commission officials.
The letters were among numerous items seized during an FBI raid of Currie?s Lanham home last week in an investigation of his consulting relationship with regional grocery store chain Shoppers Food Warehouse.
Neither Currie nor his attorney returned calls for comment. Ryan O?Donnell, executive director of open government advocacy group Common Cause, called the complaints troubling.
“Especially for a senator as powerful Senator Currie, financial disclosures become all the more important,” O’Donnell said. “When it comes to making these public disclosures, there should be no excuses. It?s not that hard to do.”
Agents also seized marijuana, “drug packaging materials,” tax records and a check stub from Shoppers during the May 31 raid of Currie?s home, according to court records. Investigators took a “contract agreement” with Currie?s name in a search of Shoppers headquarters the same day.
Currie has not disclosed his employment with the chain on his financial disclosure forms, which legislators are required to submit annually. The commission has not reprimanded Currie, who chairs the Senate budget and taxation committee, for incomplete submissions.
“If we?re not told something, we would never know,” said commission director Robert Hahn.
Currie paid fines for not filing disclosure forms in 1995 and 2003 after several notifications, ethics records show. A letter of reprimand dated Dec. 19, 1996 says Currie had “previously been the subject of a complaint in 1989 for failure to timely file his 1988 financial disclosure statement and has filed the last several annual financial disclosure statements after the April 30 deadline.”
Earlier this week, the Maryland State Highway Administration released a March 2005 e-mail from agency director Neil Pedersen, instructing staff to expedite a traffic signal project near a Shoppers store in Laurel because it was “very important” to Currie.
Special Agent Richard Wolfe, an FBI spokesman, said Thursday that investigators are “very interested” in the e-mail.
Legislative staffers have until Wednesday to comply with a federal subpoena requesting what may be thousands of documents from Currie?s office.
