By Christopher Williams,Staff Writer

It’s about two political activists who recruited a “stoner,” a “bum … living under a bridge” and a farmer’s daughter to run for state office.

About candidates – real or duped – possibly serving as pawns or meal tickets for their campaign consultants.

About roughly $40,000 of taxpayer money not accounted for, and people terrified of receipts.

About a man with a laptop and printer, and what he really created with them.

About a smear campaign involving a hastily concocted pro-same-sex-marriage group.

It’s the biggest and farthest-reaching probe ever conducted by the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics since the state started handing out taxpayer money to candidates for state office.

It’s already sparked a call for major reforms of the Maine Clean Election Act.

And its roots are right here in Lewiston-Auburn.

State Ethics Commission members have now heard hours of testimony from five subpoenaed witnesses in the last two months. The purpose: To determine whether about $40,000 in taxpayer financing given to two Maine legislative candidates was used properly, and whether the candidates’ political consultants acted ethically and deserved the pay they received.

The hearings have been spiced with tales of a fake date, marital discord and lost computer chips. There have been accusations of deception, drug abuse, flirtation, heavy drinking and witchcraft.

Witnesses sported dreadlocks and short-shorts, traded barbs, complained of negative psychic energy and pleaded the Fifth.

The colorful cast of characters – most from central Maine – are tied to two campaigns in 2004.

The candidates, Julia St. James of Hartford and Sarah Trundy of Minot, said they were talked into running for public office by two campaign consultants. (A third candidate, Major Isaac Pike, referred to by Lewiston police as a transient, didn’t testify and couldn’t be reached for comment.)

The consultants, Daniel Rogers of Lewiston and Jessica Larlee of Minot, signed up the two candidates and appear to be at the center of the investigation.

Rogers and Larlee said St. James and Trundy were legitimate candidates running legitimate races; that they were ready, willing and brought to their respective races “niche” issues.

If Democrats and Republicans can recruit candidates, why can’t independents, Rogers told commissioners Wednesday.

• • •

But the candidates themselves cast doubt on the legitimacy of their own campaigns.

Trundy told commissioners she was a reluctant candidate who tried to drop her bid for House District 75, never actively campaigned and never saw any of the campaign literature Larlee and Rogers claimed to circulate on her behalf.

Running as a Green Independent, Trundy ended up finishing last with 15 percent of the vote.

Larlee handled that campaign’s finances, spending more than $4,000 of taxpayers’ money. Of that, Rogers was paid $1,000. The rest of the money have not been fully accounted for, according to the commission.

Larlee testified that after the election, she used the same checking account for her personal use, because she had difficulty opening an account of her own due to past problems with bounced checks.

St. James, who ran for Senate District 15, told commissioners most of the mailings and automated phone calls she was promised to aid her campaign never materialized. She said Rogers practically lived at her house at first, climbing through her windows and borrowing her Jeep. But closer to Election Day, both he and Larlee vanished, leaving her to do everything, she testified.

By then, St. James said, Larlee had resigned as treasurer after a falling out. Friction between the two became evident during the first hearing when Larlee objected to St. James’ presence in the room, claiming, “I am psychic and I don’t want Julia sending attacks at me.”

St. James, a Wiccan, recalled in testimony the events that led to their split. She said Larlee was “really cranked up on methadone” during one period and “picking up a lot of men.”

Larlee later denied she used methadone and said it was St. James, a confessed “weed farmer,” who had gotten her smoking pot after a five-year hiatus. Larlee claimed it was St. James, not she, who was hitting on the campaign staff.

St. James said she trusted no one but herself to write checks on her $50,000 account of taxpayer money. She wrote checks when Rogers he told her to, she said, including more than $11,000 directly to him. Of that, Rogers testified he later gave $2,500 to Larlee.

“This is the first time I’ve used a checkbook in 20 years,” St. James testified, pleading ignorance about the validity of her campaign payments. “I don’t do checks.”

St. James, who had earlier been busted for growing pot, ran as an independent in the Fourth Branch Party. She finished last in a three-way race with 4 percent of the vote. The name of her party, she said, had its origins in a pot-smoking-induced reverie.

• • •

Other testimony from the commission hearings also had the potential for throwing a shadow on the legitimacy of Rogers’ and Larlee’s involvement in the campaigns. Examples include:

• The recruitment of Major Isaac Pike by Rogers and Larlee.

St. James at one point during testifying referred to Pike as a “bum … living under a bridge.” Larlee testified that his candidacy for a Senate seat had been merely a political ploy aimed at throwing Democrats off the scent of the St. James campaign’s signature-gathering effort.

Rogers disagreed when he testified, arguing Pike was a credible candidate because, from experience, he had first-hand knowledge of issues affecting homeless and transient populations. Pike also has multiple convictions for assault and possession of a concealed weapon, among other crimes.

• A smear campaign against a southern Maine Democrat.

Rogers testified that he created, developed, designed and printed a mailing that claimed a pro-same-sex-marriage group had endorsed the candidacy of Democrat Stephen Beaudette in a Biddeford legislative race. Rogers worked for an opponent in that race.

He said he came up with the name for the group as he was designing the mailing. He declined to give commissioners the names of any others connected to the impromptu group.

“It was meant to strike a nerve with Democrats across the state,” Rogers said. It apparently didn’t. Beaudette won handily.

• • •

Asked about the value of his services to the two campaigns, Rogers said he believed St. James got what she paid for and Trundy got even greater value than the $1,000 her campaign spent on him.

Testifying for a second time Wednesday, Larlee promised to search the jar on her mantle where she kept receipts for Trundy’s campaign. Her desk, she told commissioners, “looks like an advertisement for attention deficit disorder.”

It was a problem she had hoped to have clinically diagnosed and corrected, but state funding was apparently cut for that program, she said in a later interview.

Asked for her spending on the St. James’ campaign, Larlee said she handed over the few receipts she had accumulated to St. James after resigning as treasurer.

Commissioners met a dead end there as well. St. James told them last week she had an aversion to accounting.

“If anyone tried to hand me an invoice, I would run away,” she said. “I do not do paperwork.”

The State Ethics Commission will meet again in December to deliberate on its findings and may make a decision on whether to impose fines or pursue criminal charges.

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