DONORGATE IN THE TEAMSTERS

By EDWARD BARNES

Does this sound familiar? The campaign fund of Teamsters president Ron Carey--who won re-election in December--was forced to return $95,000 in suspicious contributions made in the critical last weeks of his campaign. Now the fbi is investigating whether the money, purportedly donated by a Massachusetts woman, in fact came from union coffers.

Barbara Arnold, whose husband Michael Ansara operates the Share Group, a telemarketing firm that has worked for the Teamsters since 1991, gave the Carey campaign $45,000 on Oct. 31, 1996. Nine days earlier, the Teamsters had paid the Share Group $48,587. Arnold donated $50,000 more on Nov. 26, just 11 days after the union had made another $48,587 payment to the company.

When an election protest was filed by John Murphy, president of a Boston Teamsters local and a supporter of Carey's opponent, Jimmy Hoffa Jr., the couple refused to open their financial records to the federal election officer. Further investigation revealed that the Share Group, which was operating phone banks for the Teamsters, had overbilled the union more than $26,000 but was allowed to keep the money. Last week the fbi attempted to question the couple, but their attorney, William Codinha, said they were "out of town." He contends that Arnold made the contributions without Ansara's knowledge because she had recently inherited money--and that the proximity of the contributions to the Teamster payments is mere "serendipity."

Unlike federal campaign laws, however, which are fuzzy in their application and relatively toothless in their remedies, the Teamster election rules are quite clear: evidence of illegal contributions that might have been decisive in an election requires a rerun. Although Carey beat Hoffa by a razor-thin margin and the Arnold contributions may have financed a crucial last-minute mailing, labor experts suspect that the government, which spent as much as $30 million on the closely monitored election, may be reluctant to act on these charges. Which would leave the Teamsters, along with the American taxpayers, mired in business as usual.

--By Edward Barnes