Calif. Producer Gave Thousands to Hart’s ’84 Drive, Paper Says : Also Subsidized Aide in 1986-87--Miami Herald

A wealthy California television film producer pumped thousands of dollars into Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential bid and secretly subsidized a key Hart aide early in his present campaign, the Miami Herald said today.

The newspaper reported that video producer Stuart Karl flew the former Colorado senator in Lear jets, paid a $3,000-a-month salary to Hart aide Dennis Walto while Walto traveled with the candidate in 1986 and 1987, and covered numerous costs in Hart’s effort to win the 1984 nomination.

The Herald quoted a Federal Election Commission spokeswoman as saying that a failure to disclose such help would be regarded as a “backdoor contribution” contrary to law prohibiting contributions from corporations or donations in excess of $1,000 each election from any one contributor.

The law also bars an employer from assigning an employee to work on a candidate’s behalf for more than an hour a week unless that work is reported as a contribution in kind and subject to the same $1,000 limit.

But FEC spokeswoman Karen Finucan said today no formal complaint has been filed over the news report. “We have to look into it if we get a complaint,” she told Reuters news service.

New Hampshire Campaign

Hart, who rejoined six rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination last month, was campaigning in New Hampshire today. At a sidewalk news conference in Keene, he told reporters that he has asked his staff to look into the allegations.

“I’ll personally see to compliance” with federal election laws, Hart said.

The report on possible financial irregularities comes at a time when Hart is trying to resurrect a presidential campaign that collapsed last May after the Miami Herald reported Hart’s relationship with Miami model Donna Rice.

At that time, a team of Herald reporters followed Hart and reported that he spent a night alone with a woman later identified as Rice in his Washington townhouse while his wife was in Denver.

Karl, a Southern California entrepreneur who has amassed a fortune marketing Jane Fonda workout and Playboy videos, declined to answer the Herald’s questions.

Copies of Checks

The Herald said it had obtained copies of $15,802 in checks from Karl’s account for material and services for Hart’s 1984 campaign, well in excess of the $1,000 limit.

According to the Herald, Karl hired Walto--a veteran of Hart’s 1984 campaign who rejoined Hart last month--and put him on the payroll of his video company in mid-1986, only days after Hart informally began his quest for the 1988 nomination.

In an interview, Walto said he was on Karl’s payroll from August through November, 1986, at a time when he worked full time for the Hart campaign.

Rama White Middel, a former Karl aide who wrote the checks to the Hart campaign, said Karl instructed her that when Hart officials called asking for money “to give them what they want.”