Marx Must Pay State over $57K For Illegal Campaign Donations

Likely largest campaign finance penalty in state history

DENVER – Today Republican Victor Marx has been fined by a state hearing officer $57,647.16 for illegally accepting 210 campaign contributions that were over state limits – the largest fine for campaign finance violations in Colorado’s entire history. 

The decision, published on the Secretary of State’s website this afternoon, actually increased the original fine 25% from what state elections officials initially requested because of the egregiousness of Marx’s “unprecedented” campaign finance offenses. 

The hearing officer even goes on to explain that the Marx campaign’s attempts to defend accepting tens of thousands of dollars in excess contributions only made their problems worse.

The hearing officer wrote in today’s decision: “The person charged with compliance did not know what he was doing, and no one above him made sure that he did.” In the decision, the hearing officer was baffled by the Marx’s campaign’s utter inability to maintain the basics of processing campaign donations or report any of it to the public without massive errors.

Marx’s own statements, that “we didn’t even know” campaign finance limits, that “we refunded everybody,” and that the complaints were “a nothing burger,” were also bluntly called out by the officer: “None of [Marx’s] statements were accurate.”

This decision only addresses the illegal excess contributions accepted by the Marx campaign – it does not address the shadowy campaign store profiting off of sales of Marx’s merchandise that led back to a shell LLC Marx himself may have owned, or fraudulently claimed to own. Those complaints are still pending investigation according to the Secretary of State. 

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