After Yellowhammer News on Sunday reported that Democratic gubernatorial nominee Walt Maddox had accepted a $10,000 contribution from admitted sexual assaulter Brandt Ayers, the Maddox campaign on Monday advised that they will be returning the money.
“[W]e did not solicit the Ayers contribution, [i]t was an online donation, we reported it as required by law, and are returning it,” Maddox spokesman Chip Hill told Yellowhammer News.
Donations are only “required by law” to be reported if deposited in a campaign’s bank account. When asked whether this occurred, Hill in an email answered, “We may not [have] had to report it but we did. We have over reported throughout the campaign in order to ensure that everything is done correctly. The clear point on this is, the contribution was made online, we did not solicit it, and we returned it. It’s really just that simple.”
Yellowhammer News, in response to Hill saying “we returned it,” then asked which day the contribution had been sent back to Ayers.
Hill responded, “It will all be on our final report.”
However, campaign finance reports filed by the campaign on Friday and Monday indicate that the contribution has not been “returned” as of yet. The campaign has until next Monday (ten days after the contribution was made) to refund Ayers’ money under state law.
It is unclear why, if the campaign originally intended to not accept the contribution, that Ayers’ money was not immediately sent back to him on Friday. To make their intent clear, the campaign could have been returned the contribution over the weekend or on Monday, as well.
Maddox’s latest finance report, which covers all activity from over the weekend and Monday, shows that the campaign still has $157,962.08 on hand.
Ayers is the former longtime editor of the Anniston Star (which his family has owned since 1912) and chairman of Consolidated Publishing, which operates Talladega’s The Daily Home, Heflin’s The Cleburne News, Pell City’s The St. Clair Times, The Piedmont Journal and The Jacksonville News, in addition to the Star.
On January 1 of this year, Ayers was accused of multiple sexual assaults that occurred in the 1970’s against then-employees of his. In an interview a day after the allegations went public, he admitted to the assaults, yet said he would not step down as chairman of his media conglomerate because he “served honorably, even courageously, in the public interest.” He would resign two days later, even though his wife took his chairmanship, ensuring no real change to the Ayers family’s power.
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
