Wilson Returns $16,000 in Campaign Donations From Lincoln S&L; Owner
California Republican Sen. Pete Wilson has returned approximately $16,000 in campaign contributions that were given to him in 1985 by Charles H. Keating Jr., owner of embattled Lincoln Savings & Loan of Irvine.
Otto Bos, Wilson’s chief spokesman in California, said Friday: “We did not do anything for Mr. Keating and if he thought that his contribution would acquire such influence, he was badly mistaken. So, even though it was four years later, we returned the money this week.”
Keating’s American Continental Corp., the parent firm of Lincoln S&L;, sold more than $200 million in uninsured junk bonds, which are now worthless. About 22,000 people, many of them elderly S&L; customers in California, bought the bonds.
Five U.S. senators, including California Democrat Alan Cranston, met with federal regulators on Keating’s behalf after he contributed money to their campaigns.
Bos said that the contributions to Wilson in 1985 came in the form of checks “from Keating and his associates” and were intended for the senator’s 1988 reelection campaign.
Wilson is now running for governor of California, but Bos said that to his knowledge Keating had made no contributions to that campaign.
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