ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal has been fined $15,000 for violating federal campaign law in her 2016 primary challenge of U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Democrat from the St. Louis suburb of University City signed a “conciliation agreement” this summer with the Federal Election Commission admitting to accepting some contributions that exceeded legal limits.
The agreement also says after Chappelle-Nadal became a federal candidate in 2015, she disbursed more than $104,000 from her state campaign to state and local Missouri candidates, and to local Democratic chapters. Chappelle-Nadal said she wasn’t aware that she couldn’t use her state account in that way.
She described what happened as “an honest mistake” and said she was “helping a lot of people” that she wanted to get elected.
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