Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, is being accused by a conservative watchdog group in an ethics complaint of submitting false financial disclosures in apparent violation of federal law.
The ethics complaint, filed on Monday by the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center, zeroes in on how Alsobrooks improperly claimed tax breaks that she did not qualify for, including one intended for senior citizens, on her former property in Washington, D.C. The revelation from September prompted Alsobrooks to be hit with a $47,000 tax bill, a portion of which she paid just ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.
Now, the National Legal and Policy Center is calling on the Senate Ethics Committee to launch an investigation, according to a copy of the complaint filed Monday. That’s because Alsobrooks, the watchdog told the committee, failed to disclose her tax liability on reports filed with Congress. Liabilities totaling more than $10,000 are required to be reported by candidates.
“All these omissions and irregularities are sloppy reporting at best for a former prosecutor who should know better or are substantive violations which she has yet to correct in an amended report, particularly the failure to report her liability to the D.C. tax authorities,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the watchdog group, wrote in the complaint.
News of the watchdog’s complaint comes as voters in Maryland and across the country cast their votes in the 2024 elections. Alsobrooks is running for Maryland’s open Senate seat against Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan. She earns over $220,000 per year as county executive of Maryland’s Prince George’s County — though she missed the Oct. 31 deadline to pay her $47,000 tax bill in full.
“You know, we paid $17,000,” Alsobrooks told a reporter last week. “We paid the amount of the credit that I received, and I’m working to pay off the interest.”
In the complaint, Kamenar said that candidates who knowingly and willfully report false information on their disclosures may be subject to civil penalties of up to $50,000 and criminal penalties.
The counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, a group that often files complaints with Congress, the Federal Election Commission, and the IRS against nonprofit groups, noted that Alsobrooks has filed three disclosure combined reports in September and August.
“A comparison of all three reports shows a number of omissions and irregularities,” the complaint read. “For example, her original filing lists five assets in Part 3. The last asset listed was a Prince George’s County Defined Benefit Pension Plan that was valued between $15,001 and $50,000.”
“However, that asset was missing in her Annual Report filed on August 13, 2024, as well as on her Amended Report of August 29, 2024. What happened to it? If she liquidated that retirement account as it appeared that she did, that is a reportable transaction, according to the Financial Disclosure Instructions,” the complaint read.
The watchdog also argued Alsobrooks failed to disclose her affiliation with the University of Maryland’s law school.
“Regarding the list of her outside Positions in Part 8, she listed on her Amended Report that from Jan. 2021 to the present, she was an Officer at the University of Maryland Law School Board of Visitors which was missing from her report just two weeks earlier but which appeared in her original September 2023 report,” according to the complaint.
The Alsobrooks campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Senate Ethics Committee.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Alsobrooks also faced an FEC complaint in June from the conservative Americans for Public Trust watchdog, which claimed Alsobrooks used state campaign funds to boost her federal campaign. The Democrat called the allegations “bogus.”
Hogan said this week that the Senate race will be the “biggest surprise upset” in the country come Election Day, although Alsobrooks has led him in polling substantially.
