Three executives of a defense contractor prohibited from making political contributions were indicted on federal charges for making unlawful donations to Sen. Susan Collins and a political action committee supporting her.
Although the indictment did not name the candidate who received the donations, one of the executives, Martin Kao, was being investigated for donating to the senator from Maine, Axios previously reported, and the indictment said the three were involved in the scheme together.
“The Collins for Senator Campaign received more than 100,000 individual contributions. As is clear in the indictment, there are no allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator Campaign,” the Collins campaign said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As stated previously, the campaign had absolutely no knowledge of any of the allegations against Mr. Kao or his associates until a search warrant was reported in the press.”
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Kao, Clifford Chen, and Lawrence “Kahele” Lum Kee were charged with a conspiracy to defraud the United States, making conduct contributions, and making government contractor contributions, the Justice Department said. Kao, the former CEO of a company that analyzes ship hulls and ocean structures, was also charged on two counts of making false statements. The company, Navatek, has since been renamed Martin Defense Group.
The three Hawaii-based executives reportedly created a fake shell company to make the illegal contribution of contractor funds to a super PAC supporting an unnamed Senate candidate, who has been identified as Collins. They also allegedly had family members make donations to the candidate’s campaign committee and reimbursed them with funds from their company.
Last year, Axios obtained a search warrant showing the FBI believed the contractor funneled $150,000 to a super PAC supporting Collins. She previously supported a contract for the company, which had an operation in Portland, Maine.
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Kao was indicted in 2020 after allegedly obtaining over $12.8 million in Paycheck Protection Program relief under fraudulent circumstances. He was charged on two counts of bank fraud and five counts of money laundering after he purportedly transferred over $2 million of the funds to his personal accounts and falsely inflated the number of employees in his business.
If convicted, the three men could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine per guilty count. Their case will be heard in an unspecified federal court.
