By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – Pandora’s box was opened for eight hours Wednesday during an investigative hearing into the 2004 campaigns of two candidates who spent taxpayer money.

Testimony heard by the Maine Ethics Commission painted a bizarre picture of financial mismanagement, ineptitude, drug use and mistrust.

Subpoenaed candidates who testified in the trial-like proceedings were Julia St. James of Hartford, who ran against incumbent Sen. Bruce Bryant for western Maine’s District 14 seat and lost, and Sarah Trundy of Minot, who ran unsuccessfully for the House 96 seat against incumbent Rep. Joan Bryant-Deschesne.

Also testifying were Jessica Larlee of Minot, the former treasurer of St. James’s Fourth Branch campaign and Trundy’s Green Party campaign manager, and Robert Campbell of Falmouth, the Hartford woman’s husband.

For her Senate campaign, St. James was given more than $50,000 in Clean Election funds. According to state records, she returned about $13,752 but failed to submit invoices or receipts showing how most of the $36,000 was spent.

All four witnesses were sequestered prior to testifying.

Commissioner Michael Bigos of Auburn said this unusual step was taken due to the “importance to the integrity of the Clean Election system and the grave nature of the potential violations.”

Testifying first, St. James accused her campaign manager, Daniel Rogers of Auburn, and Larlee, of abandoning her and not fulfilling campaign promises for which they were paid.

Rogers, whom the commission has been unable to subpoena or locate, did not attend the hearing.

St. James said she initially paid Rogers $5,000 to run her campaign. Larlee, testifying later, said she received $2,300 to $2,500 of that money for her services at $100 a week.

St. James said it was Rogers who persuaded her to run against Bryant, and reportedly told her “there was a lot of money to be had.”

When asked why she thought Rogers recruited her, St. James said, “They figured I was a stoner with a head injury and could run with it.”

Later, St. James said she fell down her stairs in 2003 and nearly died from a head injury and other trauma. Campbell, her husband, would testify later that his wife “was definitely impaired” by the head injury and memory loss during her campaign.

“She was also drinking heavily at the time, even with prescriptions,” Campbell said.

St. James expressed skepticism that she could beat Bryant, but said she was “absolutely trying to run a real campaign.”

At one point during testimony, St. James said Rogers and Larlee persuaded her to go on a date with former Rep. Stavros Mendros, R-Lewiston, who was also running for state Senate in 2004 for District 16 against Democrat Margaret Rotundo.

“Jessica called me and said I was going on a fake date with Stavros Mendros, to make his girlfriend jealous. I went out with him to get a voter list,” St. James said.

Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the commission, introduced pages from this list into evidence, a statewide list of registered voters said to have come from the Republican Party.

Contacted Wednesday night, Mendros, now a Lewiston city councilor, admitted knowing Rogers and Larlee and going out with St. James after meeting her at The Cage, a Lewiston bar and restaurant on Ash Street.

“They made it seem like she was infatuated with me,” Mendros said. “She was wicked nice.”

But, Mendros denied having access to such a list or having anything to do with Rogers getting such a list.

Campbell testified about reports and invoices he filed on behalf of his wife after she fired Larlee. He said that when he found several unexplained expenditures, he refused to sign his name to confirm that they were an accurate accounting.

“There was no way in hell that I was going to sign this as treasurer,” Campbell said. “I was not confident that everything was accurate.”

Regarding Trundy, the commission wanted answers about how much of the $4,488 she received went to campaign-related expenses.

Trundy, who broke down crying several times, blamed Larlee and Rogers for recruiting her to seek election.

“I wasn’t highly involved with the campaign,” Trundy said. “I didn’t have a lot of input, which I feel pretty badly about it.”

“I didn’t do a whole lot. Jessica did just about everything,” she said, but stopped short of saying the campaign wasn’t real.

Larlee testified, saying she recruited Trundy to run as a Clean Election candidate.

She also asked if she was going to be fined for not keeping an accurate account of receipts.

“I had them,” Larlee said. “I don’t know where they went. My desk looks like an advertisement for attention-deficit disorder.”

State Sen. Vinton E. Cassidy of Calais said, “It’s the most serious situation to come before us, potentially, if things are really as they seem.”

Larlee asked if she was going to be fined.

Fellow ethics commission member Andrew Ketterer, a former Maine attorney general, said, “I see it as much more serious.”

“If, after hearing a whole day of testimony, tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money is given in good faith, it sounds like you and Dan recruited marginal candidates. This is a lot more serious in a civil and criminal sense.”

Rogers and Larlee looked for people to recruit and run as Clean Election candidates, and talked to a man living under a bridge in Lewiston, Campbell and St. James said.

By 5:30 p.m., commissioners decided to resume the hearing at their next meeting in November, and to involve the attorney general’s office to get Rogers to appear then.