My Talk with Charles Lollar
I had a nice chat with Charles Lollar this morning regarding my reporting of earlier this week. I wanted to make sure that he got a fair chance to respond. These are the key points we talked about, printed with his permission:
- Regarding the Central Collection Unit case: the case is not related to the New Day PAC campaign finance fines, but from a MVA administrative action against him, accusing him of having expired tags and being delinquent on the registration of his third vehicle. During his most recent overseas deployment Charles re-registered his vehicle in Florida and the vehicle was not registered in Maryland during that time. The state of Maryland says that it was and is trying to take action against him to recoup the lost fees. Charles said that since the vehicle was not registered in Florida during his deployment he doesn’t owe anything to Maryland on this and is continuing to fight the case.
- In regards to the New Day PAC filings, this is also related to Charles overseas deployment. During his deployment, Charles stepped down as Chairman and a new Chairman took his place. During that period is when the violations occurred. Charles has indicated that the fines were paid by the former officers, though they are not appearing in the campaign finance database. When asked about the most recent campaign finance violation with an outstanding fine that is not paid, Charles is working with the State Board of Elections to determine why that is, noting that treasurer Sam Luxenburg is very studious about those things.
We then continued the chat (off the record) for a few more minutes.
I want to thank Charles for reaching out and allowing us to present his side of the story.
