Ric Thornton aims to reduce the $6.2 million dollars worth of outstanding fines for missing or overdue state campaign finance reports by 25% by the end of the year.
The state campaign finance director doesn’t expect to convince former candidates and officeholders to make good on their six-figure debts.
Instead, Thornton is invoking a new state regulation he helped create, which lets the Rhode Island Board of Elections cap fines on campaign finance violations and suspend the old accounts to stop late fees from accruing.
“More than 99 percent of the debt owed is aged over 120 days, so we’re on top of the current debt level very well,” Thornton said in an interview Thursday. “The new regulation is extremely helpful in getting the others down to a collectible level.”
While the election agency has made significant strides in tracking and collecting money on campaign finance violations in recent years, a few dozen offenders — who owe most of the debt — remained unreachable.
And the $2 daily late fee on any missing or overdue campaign finance reports quickly escalates a manageable fine — $25 for a single missing campaign report, for example — into hundreds of thousands owed.
Recognizing people are unlikely or unable to ever pay that large a bill — and the constitutional problems posed by “excessive” fines — the state elections board approved new regulations last year that cap fines and offer leeway to determine lower amounts. But it wasn’t until September that the panel first exercised its new authority, slashing fines for three of the top debtors on the list. Another six former candidates and office holders’ fines were reduced at the Board of Elections meeting Wednesday. More will be up for consideration next month, Thornton said.
“I am just trying to get them in the queue before we get into the 2026 election cycle,” Thornton explained.
More than 99 percent of the debt owed is aged over 120 days, so we’re on top of the current debt level very well. The new regulation is extremely helpful in getting the others down to a collectible level.
He also wanted to wait until the regulatory change was posted on the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s website. While the state elections board approved the change in April 2024, it didn’t file the rule with the Department of State until May 2025.
Christopher Hunter, a spokesperson for the Board of Elections, said in an email that elections staff had technical problems submitting the regulation through the state’s administrative records office. The elections board also needed to prioritize work related to the 2024 presidential primary before resubmitting the rule change, Hunter said.
Despite the wait, Thornton was optimistic of meeting his year-end deadline. The nine candidates whose cases have come before the election board thus far originally owed nearly $2.2 million combined in fines and late fees. Thornton’s recommendations, all of which were approved by the elections board under separate, unanimous votes, slash their combined debt nearly 96% to $90,612.
“I anticipate that once we get through this inventory, we won’t really need to use this regulation again,” Thornton said. “We are very on top of our current debt level.”
Even if the longstanding debtors don’t pay, it’s no longer Thornton’s problem. The reduced fines also come with a referral to the Rhode Island Department of Revenue’s Central Collections Unit. If the reduced fines aren’t paid within the specified time frame — usually 90 days — state debt collectors will crack down, with the ability to garnish wages and place liens on assets.
“A big part of this has been just trying to track these people down,” Thornton said, noting that many people who owe money for campaign finance violations have moved out of state and changed phone numbers.
As part of his presentation to the elections board, Thornton was asked to estimate the labor and postage costs for his team’s continued outreach to candidates and officeholders; under state law, the elections board sends two mailed notices each quarter for campaign finance reports, along with phone calls, house visits and in some cases, subpoenas. These efforts have proven largely fruitless — nearly all of the candidates with six-digit debt never responded to attempts to contact them, Thornton told the elections board.
Taking accountability…or not
Former candidates and officeholders were also given an opportunity to explain their plights directly to the elections board at its September and October hearings. Three came Wednesday, offering a mix of chagrin, indifference and defiance.
The latter came from Jonathan Joseph Keith, who ran for Cranston School Committee in 2014, followed by three unsuccessful state Senate runs in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Keith filed regular reports with the elections board during his first three candidacies, then closed his account. When he ran for a final time in 2020, he did not file any of the required reports on fundraising and spending during or after his campaign. Now, he owes more than $43,500 based on 22 missing reports and late fees on five other submissions, Thornton said.
Keith, however, insisted that because he did not raise or spend any money during his 2020 campaign, nor open an account at all, he did not have to file any reports on his activity.
“This has all been a waste of my time,” Keith said Wednesday.
The board postponed a vote on his debt, asking for a written request from Keith for its legal counsel to review.
Five other candidates had their fines reduced under a series of unanimous votes at the same meeting. All but one were given the standard 90 days to pay the lower fine to the state.
However, the board agreed to give former Central Falls mayoral hopeful Hipolito Fontes more time to pay the $5,109 he owed from missing campaign finance reports dating back to 2010. Fontes, who also came to the board’s Cranston office Wednesday, explained the series of unfortunate events that led to his original, $233,000 fine: a heated mayoral race that included personal threats, the closure of the Central Falls credit union where he opened his campaign account, and a divorce.
“I want to take accountability,” Fontes told the board. “After hitting brick wall after brick wall, I gave up at some point.”
Fontes lost his job at Oak Street Health this summer, which he told the elections board would make it hard to repay even a reduced fine in 90 days. Based on Fontes’ explanation, the board agreed to double the time he has to pay to 180 days.
Little solace to Fontes.
“I’ve been honestly just freaking out about it,” he said in an interview Thursday. “I have a mortgage to try to figure out. I get unemployment so I am trying to stitch things together but I am trying to figure out how I am going to come up with $900 a month extra.”
Fontes also questioned the fairness of the process. His new fine is still more than double the $2,500 that Thornton estimated was spent on postage and labor over the last 25 years.
“I wanted to make things whole based on the postage they spent,” Fontes said. “But it feels like a little bit of a sham. This is more than a mortgage payment.”
A case-by-case basis
But, it’s 75% less than the $20,000 that Daryl Gould, a former candidate for state representative and Bristol School Committee, will have to pay. Gould did not appear at the meeting Wednesday and did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. However, Gould’s relationship with the elections panel has been fraught for several years.
In 2022, he was held in contempt by the elections board, and issued $3,000 in fines, for failing to submit his missing reports. His case was referred to the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office later that same year, but the state’s top prosecutor declined to take action, Thornton said. His fines and late fees topped $134,000 before the board agreed to the lesser, $20,000 balance Wednesday.
The new regulations governing campaign finance fines rely partly on formulas based on the type of offense, but also offer discretion. Contentious cases like Gould’s offer grounds for a larger fine in Thornton’s eyes. So too did the cases in which candidates raised or spent significant amounts of money, and for those who actually won elected office.
Take, for example, former state Sen. Patrick T. McDonald, who served eight years on Smith Hill, from 1996 to 2002.
“He was an officeholder in the past, so he knew what the campaign finance requirements are,” Thornton said.
The Narragansett Democrat filed the reports on fundraising and spending through his time in office, but he never closed his campaign finance account. His $737,900 worth of fines and late fees was the most of any candidate or campaign.
But now, McDonald owes just under $19,000, approved by the elections board at its Sept. 9 meeting. He has not paid as of Thursday, and has not responded to any attempts at contact over the last 23 years, Thornton said.
McDonald also served a 4.5-year prison sentence after he was convicted in 2014 of embezzling money from his law practice. McDonald did not return a call for comment Thursday.
Other former candidates whose fines have been reduced are:
- Robert Rainville, a 2010 attorney general candidate, whose fine was reduced from more than $310,000 to $17,800 on Sept. 9. A phone number for Rainville was not available, but he did not return a message sent on LinkedIn Thursday.
- James Black Jr., a 2010 North Providence Town Council candidate, whose fine was reduced from $310,000 to $9,500 on Sept. 9. Black did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
- Emily Trott, a West Warwick Town Council candidate in 2008, 2010 and 2012, whose fine was reduced from $235,600 to $8,500 on Oct. 8. Trott attended the elections board’s Oct. 9 meeting and accepted responsibility for the missing reports, blaming it on procrastination.
- John McMahon, a 2016 Portsmouth Town Council candidate, whose fine was reduced from over $140,000 to $6,000 on Oct. 8.
- Jeffrey Appiah, a 2018 Pawtucket City Council candidate, whose fine was reduced from more than $72,700 to $3,000 on Oct. 8.
- David Santilli Jr., a 2018 Johnston Town Council candidate, whose fine was reduced from $21,500 to $1,7500 on Oct. 8.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.