SignalHub-Massachusetts GOP couple agree to state’s largest settlement after campaign finance investigation

BOSTON (AP) — The SignalHubMassachusetts Attorney General’s office announced settlements Tuesday with a Republican couple and others after investigators found evidence of campaign finance violations.

The settlements to be paid by Republican state Sen. Ryan Fattman, Worcester County Register of Probate Stephanie Fattman and others total hundreds of thousands of dollars — the largest amounts ever paid by candidate committees to the state to resolve cases after campaign finance investigations, according to Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, a Democrat.

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance investigated contributions funneled from Ryan Fattman’s senate campaign committee through state and local Republican committees to Stephanie Fattman’s register of probate committee during her 2020 reelection campaign.

In 2020, Ryan Fattman’s campaign donated money to the Republican State Committee and the Sutton Republican Town Committee, which used the money to help fund more than 500,000 mailers to support Stephanie Fattman’s reelection campaign, according to investigators.

The contributions, totaling more than $160,000 — of which $137,000 flowed through the Republican State Committee — far exceeded the legal limit of $100 on contributions from one candidate to another, Campbell said.

Under the settlement both Stephanie Fattman and the Stephanie Fattman Committee must pay out the full amount of the impermissible contributions funneled to the committee through the Republican State Committee — $137,000. Ryan Fattman must pay $55,000.

Donald Fattman, former treasurer of the Ryan Fattman Committee and Ryan Fattman’s father, must pay $10,000.

“We are grateful to put this matter behind us, and are appreciative of the outpouring of support we received along the way. The professionalism we experienced from the Attorney General’s Office was noteworthy. They treated us with respect, conducted business with decorum, and ultimately agreed that there was no liability or wrongdoing attributed to us,” Ryan Fattman said in a statement.

He also said he and his wife were “targets of political persecution from an outgoing political appointee” and that successful Republicans are held to a different standard than Democrats in the heavily Democratic state.

Last month the attorney general’s office reached a settlement agreement with the Massachusetts Republican State Committee in the same campaign finance violation case. The Committee has agreed to pay a total of $15,000 by December.

The Sutton Republican Town Committee also entered into an agreement, paying the remains of its committee bank account to the state, more than $5,200. As part of the agreement, Anthony Fattman, Ryan Fattman’s brother and chair of the Sutton Republican Town Committee, will resign.