On Oct. 20, 1996, Brian Davis wrote a check for $10,000 to a fund controlled by the Democratic National Committee in an effort to help Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Democrats in Congress win reelection.
Oddly, Davis was a registered Republican who would not bother to vote in the contest he seemed so eager to influence.
Odder still, he faced $11.6 million in debts at the time. He had filed for personal bankruptcy four months earlier. For nearly a year, federal bankruptcy trustees had also been supervising his modest trucking business in this harbor city on Chesapeake Bay.
Davis faced eviction from his hunt-country home. He testified in bankruptcy court that he was receiving no income, surviving on loans from friends and relatives.
Ask Davis why he chose to spend $10,000 on politics in such strange circumstances, and the answer comes without hesitation: “They sent a letter. I’d been doing it for years.” Ask where he got the $10,000, and he grows coy. “I’m not going to disclose that,” he said.
In the checkered annals of campaign finance, 41-year-old Brian Henry Davis stands out–as compulsive a contributor as he was expert at channeling funds. In an interview, he admitted responsibility for donations that violated campaign limits and said that some of the money came from bank loans he has pleaded guilty to obtaining by fraudulent means.
Over a seven-year period, campaign records show, Davis gave hard money and soft, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, at every level from U.S. president to county sheriff. He gave to Republicans and Democrats, inside his native Maryland and out, without regard to ideology or creed: from conservative U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley of Maryland, now retired, to liberal U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
In his zeal, Davis has become, in the words of Maryland Common Cause director Deborah Povich, “a poster boy for campaign-finance reform.” Indeed, the Maryland state prosecutor, Stephen Montanarelli, gives partial credit to the Davis affair for recently breaking the Legislature’s long-term resistance to changing state rules. “It pointed out to the public that the campaign-finance laws were not working,” he said.
Years before the current scandals involving foreign money, the Baltimore-born Davis could have offered an early-warning signal of how easy it is not only to exploit loopholes in campaign laws, but also to violate legal limits–and how little politicians and their treasurer in either major party care about ensuring that their donors play by the rules.
In an era of astronomically expensive campaigns, reliable contributors are essential–so welcome and so numerous that the sources of their money have gone largely unquestioned. Amid the tumult of a bid for elective office–laying political strategy, staking out positions on issues, arrangingfor ads and polls, stumping for votes–candidates devote few resources to screening donations.
“You take what you’re given,” Bentley said.
Davis admitted in an interview to giving in his own name and in the names of many others–who say he did it without their knowledge. Among them: his stepbrother and sister, his 83-year-old mother and the chef at a restaurant he co-owned.
In Two Days, He Gave One Campaign $16,000
After a federal plea bargain, he is due to be sentenced June 10 on charges of bank fraud and tax evasion. He originally was accused of deceiving 10 banks–one alone is claiming he borrowed $4.5 million–by using the same trucks repeatedly as collateral. He allegedly carried out these schemes from 1993 through late 1995, coinciding with his most frenzied donating activity.
On just two days in 1994, Davis presented at least $16,000 to Democrat Gerry L. Brewster’s unsuccessful general election campaign for Congress in Maryland’s 2nd District. That was 16 times the legal federal limit.
As part of that sum, campaign treasurer John Armiger recalls, Davis handed over a $12,000 cashier’s check–drawn on the Bank of Glen Burnie, signed by a bank officer. He recalls Davis explaining that it represented contributions from 12 people–which would make the total dollar amount a legal donation. He recalls Davis assuring him he needn’t worry, it was done all the time. And Armiger recalls depositing the check.
The last thing a campaign wants to do is offend a financial supporter. “If you ask for more information, the response may be, ‘It’s none of your damned business.’ They’ll say, ‘Why are you asking me this?’ ” said Bruce Marcus, lawyer for the 1994 campaign of Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening.
The campaign received at least $28,000 from Davis and his businesses. Of that, $12,000 came in three cashier’s checks, each made out to the legal state limit of $4,000, each with a different Davis family member’s name scribbled on the top. The cashier’s checks were paid for with money from the account of Davis’ trucking company, according to Zvi Guttman, the federal trustee overseeing Davis’ personal bankruptcy.
Instead of scrutiny, such irregular offerings brought Davis a coterie of politicians willing to drop by his sky-box parties at Orioles Park at Camden Yards, to tape radio commercials for his restaurant, to appoint him to a $12,360-a-year state commission post.
Of course, few politicians neglected to invite him to their fund-raisers.
Employees at One Pub Loved Those $100 Tips
After all, Davis appeared to be a wealthy man. He lived in the rolling hills north of town in a red-brick Colonial surrounded by daffodils, tulips and a flowering cherry tree. The bathroom faucets were gold-plated.
He often traveled by limousine. He carried a gold cigarette lighter and a gold doubloon.
At Michael’s, an upscale pub near the Maryland State Fairgrounds, the employees thrilled to the familiar sight of Davis’ trademark New York Yankees baseball cap and to the deep rasp of his voice. They liked those $100 tips.
His political connections impressed them, too. Once, bartender Dave Seaby recalls, Dan Quayle dined at Michael’s in a private room. As he emerged, the former vice president noticed Davis at the bar and greeted him by name.
Although some candidates were unaware of his tactics, others actually suggested methods for hiding the illegal extent of his largess, Davis said during a recent series of interviews.
Davis is not naming names publicly, but he is cooperating with state and federal investigations. It is part of his plea agreement in the bank fraud case.
He doesn’t expect much fallout on himself or others. For one thing, the two-year statute of limitations for most campaign-finance violations has passed. For another, “It’s not easy to prove campaign fraud,” Davis said.
Montanarelli agreed: “We would have to show action that was willful and knowing” to prosecute a candidate.
As a potential witness, Davis also has a credibility problem. He filed no tax returns from 1991 through 1995. He noted in a 1995 financial statement to U.S. Bankruptcy Court that he made no gifts or donations outside his immediate family in the previous year–clearly untrue.
“If I was blinded by the sun and he said it was a sunny day, I wouldn’t believe it,” said his stepbrother, Bruce C. Davis, a retired school principal. On contributions attributed to Bruce, Brian listed his stepbrother’s job as “rancher” or “public relations.”
Prosecutors and bankruptcy trustees aren’t even sure how much Brian Davis has donated, or in how many names.
Davis said in an interview that he has contributed about $500,000 to political campaigns, but friends say he’s told them the amount is closer to $1 million.
From December 1994 through December 1995, Davis’ trucking company, Oceanic Ltd., made between $30,000 and $40,000 in traceable campaign donations, said federal bankruptcy Trustee Howard Rubinstein, who requested refunds on behalf of Oceanic’s creditors. So far, Rubinstein has received $500, from Maryland’s Republican State Central Committee. About $20,000 more has been promised, he said.
Campaign staffers say they are delaying because they are confused about where to return the contributions. To Brian Davis? To his personal creditors? To Oceanic’s? Or to the other people named on the checks?
From July 1994 to November 1995, Davis also endorsed checks worth $847,000 made out to “cash” from Oceanic accounts, Rubinstein said. And Davis’ former partners in a restaurant claim that Davis diverted at least $250,000 in loans for that enterprise that the business never received.
“We’re finding it impossible to tell,” Rubinstein said, how much cash went to campaigns and how much to legitimate business expenses or to luxuries for Davis.
‘Trying to Buy Love,’ His Stepbrother Says The motives behind the Davis contributions remain a mystery. Oceanic did not get government contracts, and Davis’ one appointment, a position on the Maryland Injured Workers Insurance Fund, was far from lucrative in relation to how much he donated. Appointed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer in 1994 and reappointed by Glendening, he resigned in March 1996 because he had attended less than half the meetings.
“Brian was trying to buy love,” his stepbrother speculated. “He wanted to look important and be a big shot.”
Davis himself had another explanation. He said he got involved with candidates because “it affected my business.”
Indeed, he became a strong supporter of then-Rep. Bentley, a former member of the Federal Maritime Commission and a fervent advocate of the Port of Baltimore, where Davis drew much of his clientele. Several candidates he helped later, including Democrats, also attracted former Bentley staffers and volunteers.
In 1989, Davis and his lawyer at the time attended the Stars and Stripes Ball, celebrating the inaugural of George Bush and Dan Quayle. The lawyer, Thomas Alderman, said the tickets came courtesy of Bentley. “That was really his debut, his coming-out,’ Alderman said.
In 1991, Bentley’s congressional campaign listed Davis, his wife, Joan, and his mother as donating $1,000 apiece. In 1992, his sister, Sharon Gratto, was added to the roster of contributors. In 1993, so was Bruce.
By this time, Davis and two friends had started a restaurant in a preppy section of north Baltimore. McCafferty’s bears the name of partner Don McCafferty, son of a Baltimore Colts coach who’d won fame as the youngest to lead a Super Bowl championship team.
“At first,” said a McCafferty’s employee, “Brian used to kiss up to any politicians that came in. I knew he’d arrived when I saw that they were kissing up to him.”
Davis became close friends with state Sen. John A. Pica, sharing a sailboat. He said he also gave Pica money toward a down payment on a Delaware beach house they would jointly own, which Pica denies.
Growing Connections Impressed His Mother
Brian’s growing political network made his mother bubble with enthusiasm. Bruce mimicked her: “Brian is having dinner with Helen Bentley. Brian is going to have lunch with Ted Kennedy. Brian went to the White House to a meeting about transportation.”
This excitement was something new, said Bruce, her son by a previous marriage. His mother, he said, and his adoptive father, dentist Henry Davis, always offered a stock reply when he, Sharon or Brian boasted of achievement. “It’s no more than I would have expected,” they’d say.
Bruce and Sharon eventually left Maryland. Brian managed restaurants in Baltimore. His first trucking venture failed. But he used the five leftover vehicles to start Oceanic. Suddenly, he seemed prosperous and important.
Signs surfaced, occasionally, of something amiss. Davis drew a rebuke from the state prosecutor’s office when he organized a McCafferty’s fund-raiser for Bentley on the same night as a promotion featuring sports stars, such as former Colts great John Unitas. The presence of both implied falsely that the athletes endorsed Bentley, prosecutors said.
Davis’ sister wondered why she was receiving so many invitations to political events. The capper, she said, was a VIP pass to the Republican National Convention last August.
“I would never give a nickel to a Republican,” Gratto said.
Meanwhile, Oceanic expanded to a 30-vehicle concern. Assistant U.S. Atty. Dale Kelberman said Davis got false titles for many of his trucks, thereby concealing liens against them, then offered them as security when applying for loans.
Davis sees nothing wrong with that. “People get two or three mortgages on their homes,” he said.
Gerry Brewster met Davis at a fund-raiser while a member of Maryland’s House of Delegates. He remembers “someone from the Bentley camp” advised him to get to know the talkative man with the thinning gray hair.
“He’s a player,” Brewster recalls being told. “He was supportive of candidates, financially supportive.”
In 1994, Brewster ran for Congress. Davis was anointed the campaign’s “liaison to the Port of Baltimore.”
The candidate was “the sorriest fund-raiser,” Armiger, his treasurer recalled. Brewster, for his part, felt tormented by staffers constantly pressing for money. “We need TV, more TV, more TV,” was all they ever seemed to say. He hated begging supporters to open their wallets.
In such an atmosphere, Davis was a huge relief. “You didn’t even have to ask,” Brewster said. “He just came up and said, ‘I’m giving the maximum.’ ”
“Thank you,” the candidate sighed.
Federal Election Commission records show Davis gave Brewster $1,000 on Sept. 30, 1994. Also listed as donors were Joan Davis; Doris Mae Feehley, his secretary; Christopher Roby, her son; and Davis business colleagues Ed Borisevec, Richard Colonell and Roger Mooney.
Records show Mooney as giving $1,000 more–naming a different employer–on Nov. 1, 1994. On the same day, Brewster reported, $1,000 donations arrived from “Mae Feehley” and Richard Feehley, Doris’ husband; and Don McCafferty, David McMurray and Gene Bridges of McCafferty’s.
“Oh, God, no,” said Bridges, who is a chef, when asked recently if he’d made the donation. “I make $900 a week. If I had $1,000, I’d be ecstatic. I’d spend it on my family.”
In fact, Davis said, he was responsible for his associates’ contributions.
Brewster lost.
In November 1995, creditors forced Oceanic into bankruptcy.
The following June–six days after he filed for personal bankruptcy–Davis gave $1,000 to Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s race to keep his Rhode Island seat. The check bounced. Kennedy campaign treasurer Jamie Whitehead recalls phoning Davis’ office several times in hopes of getting him to honor the pledge.
Yet Davis never lost his composure. Last December, when the bank-fraud charges were filed, he reacted with amusement. “So what?” bartender Seaby recalls him saying. “I’m still going to the Inaugural Ball.”
Less than two months earlier, he’d gone to the trouble of using a bank account that bankruptcy trustees and law enforcement officials did not know about.
It was in the name of The Davis Group, which he said was a warehousing venture that “never materialized.” For the Democrats, he risked a $10,000 check.
Davis said he indeed traveled to Washington in January and detailed a crowded schedule of inaugural events.
Democratic officials say that while Davis may have bought tickets to some festivities, he received no special treatment.
The next month, under pressure stemming from the foreign-money controversy, the DNC listed the Davis Group check among $3 million in improper donations that it intended to return.
The DNC was rejecting his money. For Davis, that must have been the ultimate insult.
Times staff writers Alan Miller and Glenn Bunting in Washington and researcher John Beckham in Chicago contributed to this story.