Fringe candidates’ lawyer cries ‘conspiracy’ as Clean Elections fraud probe barrels ahead

The Clean Elections Commission on Thursday ordered its executive director to continue to investigate three fringe statewide candidates suspected of falsely obtaining millions in public funds for their campaigns. When that investigation is completed, they want him to make a recommendation about whether any of the $4.7 million they collectively received should be repaid. 

The unanimous votes of the four-person commission to order the completion of the investigations came two days after the Arizona Mirror published an exclusive report that six Arizonans said Green Party candidate for governor Risa Lombardo, Green Party candidate for secretary of state Duwayne Collier and Republican candidate for governor Scott Neely had falsely used their names on donations to help the candidates qualify for public campaign funding. 

The Arizona Green Party has accused Lombardo and Collier of being “sham” candidates, Republicans in disguise aimed at leaching votes from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to benefit Republican Andy Biggs in the general election. 

The bipartisan commission gave Executive Director Tom Collins authorization to subpoena the candidates’ records and bank statements in his investigation, as well as to subpoena witnesses and to compel their testimony. The commission ordered Collins to finish his investigation and to issue his recommendation for or against repayment, and the repayment amount, by as soon as Sept. 24 and no later than Oct. 29.  

Tim La Sota, a veteran Republican election attorney who is representing Lombardo and Collier, characterized the investigations and accusations as conspiracy theories cooked up by Collins. 

“It’s clear he’s gotten all hopped up on this conspiracy theory, and it’s caused him to basically ignore reality and try to take everyday things and turn them into something nefarious, which they’re not,” La Sota said.

The Clean Elections investigation and the Mirror’s review of campaign finance records separately found that the three campaigns reported collecting Clean Elections qualifying contributions from nearly 4,000 of the same voters, including more than 2,600 who were listed as giving to all three. The duplicated contributions across multiple candidates account for nearly 75% of the voters listed as giving qualifying contributions to the trio.

Those $5 qualifying contributions are a requirement for candidates who wish to access public campaign financing. Every candidate participating in Clean Elections must gather a set number of the small-dollar contributions — the exact number depends on what office the candidate is seeking — from voters to unlock the larger sums of money.

For the hundreds of contributors to all three of the candidates that the Mirror reviewed, the vast majority had never given to another candidate, according to the Secretary of State Office’s campaign finance records. 

The Mirror attempted to contact more than 50 voters who reportedly gave qualifying contributions to all three candidates and found none who said the contributions listed in their name were legitimate. It received responses from six purported donors who were adamant they didn’t make the contributions, even though what appeared to be their signatures were on the documents. 

“I can tell you right now, with 1,000% certainty, that I did not make a single contribution, let alone three of them,” Christopher Scott of Peoria told the Mirror when asked about forms filed by the candidates showing he had donated $5 to each in order to help them qualify for Arizona’s public campaign finance program.

During the meeting, La Sota accused Collins of operating based on a hunch, without supporting evidence, and “a handful of people who say they didn’t sign.” 

“We don’t know, maybe they’re confused,” La Sota said of the voters who spoke with the Mirror. “We don’t know who’s telling the truth, or who those people are. Maybe the reporter got it wrong.” 

The Mirror included the purported donors’ full names and addresses in its messages to them, and provided copies of the contribution slips, with the supposed contributors’ signatures to those who responded. No one who responded said that they’d made the contributions. 

La Sota also said that the Mirror’s article was the first time he’d heard anything about the accusations against his clients, adding that Collins should have called him to clear things up. 

The Mirror made numerous phone calls and emails to the Lombardo and Collier campaigns about various accusations against them over the past two months. Neither campaign responded. 

“The campaigns should not have been besmirched this way, based on what is really just a bunch of black helicopter-type conspiracy theories,” La Sota told the Clean Elections Commission before it voted to investigate his clients. 

Neely also told the commissioners that he had no idea of the allegations against him until the article was published, even though his comments to the Mirror, made a day earlier, were included in that article. Neely told the Mirror in a brief interview for that article that he knew nothing about any false donations and that the people who recruited him to run for office had collected the donations on his behalf. 

Neely refused to identify those people, however, and said he was unaware that the same people who are recorded as collecting donations on his behalf also collected donations for Collier. 

“I haven’t engaged in any fraud, and I’m confident I will be exonerated soon,” Neely told the commissioners. 

The same four people are in the record as collecting the majority of $5 contributions for Neely and Collier. Lombardo was listed as collecting all of her qualifying contributions. During the meeting, La Sota indicated that Lombardo had falsely signed more than 4,000 forms detailing the qualifying contributions because she mistakenly thought she was required to sign all of them. 

Clean Elections candidates are barred from paying people to collect $5 donations, making it unlikely that the same people would volunteer to collect donations for candidates from different parties. 

In letters he sent to Lombardo, Collier and Neely on Aug. 25, Collins informed the candidates of his investigation and told them they might be required to return the public funding they received from the commission. That includes up to $2.8 million for Lombardo, more than $739,000 for Collier and more than $1.1 million for Neely. Collier and Lombardo both received public funding for both their primary and general election campaigns, but Neely only received funding for the primary that he lost to Biggs. 

He laid out much of the evidence his investigation had turned up, including that, although the candidates reported collecting $5 contributions over the course of several months, from November 2025 through April 2026, they all deposited the money from those donations in lump sums in May. Lombardo and Collier both made their deposits on the same day they applied to receive public funding and Neely made his about a week prior to applying. 

“Where was the money? Was it in a shoebox?,” Collins asked. 

Collins also pointed out that, prior to their deposits, all of the campaigns had very little money to pay for signature collection to get their names on the ballot or for the infrastructure needed to coordinate the collection of the $5 donations, even if they were collected by volunteers. 

At the beginning of May, Lombardo’s campaign account had a balance of $61, and Collier’s had a $25 balance, while Neely’s had $177. 

Lombardo’s campaign didn’t report making any payments to any people or businesses until after she received public campaign funding, even though she’d reportedly already collected thousands of signatures to get her name on the ballot and more than 4,000 small contributions. 

Neither Collier nor Neely reported paying any people or businesses prior to receiving public funding, either. 

“Their financial activity doesn’t reflect an operation of this scale,” Collins said. 

La Sota said the letters sent to his clients, along with Neely, were smears of their character based on Collins’ personal dislike of them. 

“It’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s not based on any evidence,” he said. He had no evidence of any animus, however.

La Sota said that any issues with campaign finance reporting could be remedied with amended reports, calling the issues that Collins laid out in his letters to be “a nothingburger” full of inferences and assumptions. 

“There’s nothing but smoke and mirrors in Mr. Collins’s letter,” he said. “There’s nothing to rely on, and I think you should take action. I think you should reject this recommendation so you don’t leave these candidates in a state of limbo. As it is, we’re not giving the money back, period, end of story.” 

La Sota said that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes had already certified the candidates as qualifying for the public funding, and if there was an issue with the $5 contributions, it should have been brought up months ago. 

In the letter to Lombardo, Collins said he believed the secretary of state had incorrectly certified her campaign to receive public funds, based on incorrect calculations. During the Thursday meeting, La Sota provided additional correspondence with the secretary of state’s office explaining that Lombardo was cleared for public funding after her contribution slips were sent to the counties for a full review. 

Collins told the Mirror in a statement that he doesn’t think the resolution of that matter makes much difference when it comes to the investigation, given all of the other issues that have been uncovered. 

The majority of the slips went to Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap for review.