When an unheralded candidate for the State Assembly submitted a six-figure request for matching funds under New York’s new public campaign finance system, it came with glaring red flags.
Of nearly 300 contribution cards turned in by the candidate, Dao Yin, only nine had donors’ phone numbers or email addresses as required under the system’s guidelines.
The lack of compliance caused the state Public Campaign Finance Board to initially reject Mr. Yin’s request for most of the matching funds tied to cash contributions, records obtained by The New York Times show. But in April, the board threw Mr. Yin a lifeline, allowing him to submit copies of “good-faith letters,” documenting his supposed attempt to obtain the missing information from the donors.
The board soon sent him $162,800 in matching campaign funds, the eighth-highest amount awarded to a State Assembly candidate running this year. The board said no other state candidate has used the good-faith letters; neither Mr. Yin nor regulators provided any evidence that he had sent them to any of the donors in question.
Mr. Yin’s impressive haul reflects what appeared to be a formidable number of small campaign contributions, most of them in cash. But an investigation by The Times this month found potential examples of fraud in his campaign disclosures. Nineteen of Mr. Yin’s supposed cash donors said they did not know him or had not given him money. (The Times has since identified seven more supposed cash donors to Mr. Yin who said they had not given to him.)
A closer look at the donor cards revealed another troubling flaw: At least 13 had fraudulent signatures, according to a review of the cards and interviews with some of the supposed donors.
“That’s unbelievable,” said Asif Alli, 48, who works for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, after a reporter texted him screenshots of contribution cards for him and two siblings.
Mr. Yin submitted the cards to the board with the Alli family’s last names misspelled on two of them. “All this stuff is fake,” Mr. Alli said. “It’s all forged.”
One of the siblings, who also confirmed not having given to Mr. Yin or signing a contribution card, has not lived at the address listed by Mr. Yin’s campaign since 2016. Their signatures, shared with The Times, bear no resemblance to those on the cards.
Other supposed donors to Mr. Yin confirmed in text messages that the signatures attributed to them on the contribution cards had also been forged.
“It’s not my handwriting,” said Son Hee Kim, who was falsely listed as donating $25 to Mr. Yin, which qualified him to receive $300 in matching funds. “I didn’t live there at the time, and I never signed it.”
Of the 26 fake donors identified by The Times whose cash contributions were submitted for public matching funds, all but one was approved by the state board, netting Mr. Yin $11,040 in taxpayer money.
Mr. Yin, a Democrat running a long-shot primary campaign to unseat longtime Assemblyman Ron Kim, has largely denied any wrongdoing, saying that any inconsistencies were the result of unintentional mistakes. He is one of 69 state legislative candidates who received a slice of more than $8.6 million in matching funds before the state’s primaries on Tuesday.
At a recent fund-raiser at the New Mulan restaurant in Flushing, supporters called him “big boss” and chanted “Dao Yin, must win!” in Mandarin before the candidate took the stage. During his address to the crowd, Mr. Yin referenced the Times article, admitted that there were errors in his campaign finance reports and said he was working with the state authorities to ensure that he was complying with the rules.
“We all make mistakes,” he told the crowd in Mandarin.
Mr. Yin is an accountant and acts as his own campaign treasurer, an unusual arrangement that makes him more directly responsible than most candidates for the financial activities, record-keeping and veracity of his disclosures to the campaign finance board, which oversees the matching funds program.
Candidates qualify for public matching funds by submitting proof they have received small donations, from $5 to $250, from supporters in their districts. Most donations come in through online fund-raising platforms, credit cards or checks. But over half of Mr. Yin’s money arrived in the least traceable form, cash, the highest proportion of any candidate to receive matching funds this year.
Candidates must submit contribution cards for each cash donation, and when Mr. Yin’s cards came in without the required information, the board rejected his request for matching funds until he submitted copies of the good-faith letters. The board did not require evidence that he had actually sent them to donors.
A board spokeswoman, Kathleen McGrath, said that the state policy allowing good-faith letters was adopted in January and that it had been modeled on a similar provision used by federal regulators.
She said that the board has begun contacting donors but could not discuss whether Mr. Yin was under investigation. The board “remains committed to administering a program of public matching funds to state level candidates in a meticulous, efficient, and transparent way,” Ms. McGrath said.
Mr. Yin could face a fine of up to $15,000 under state election law, forfeit any public funds he received and be subject to potential criminal charges. His case illustrates weaknesses in the state’s new system, campaign finance experts said.
Sarah Steiner, an election lawyer in New York, said it was “disturbing” that the board had allowed hundreds of letters to authorize numerous donations for matching funds without the required contributor information.
“Doing a ‘good-faith letter’ in bulk is a warning sign, and they should have looked into it,” she said. “It’s a major red flag to see this kind of letter to validate hundreds of donors at once.”
Blair Horner, the director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, concurred. “The honor system does not work when it comes to campaign finance,” he said.
In a canvass of addresses connected to 55 of Mr. Yin’s reported donors, The Times found only seven people who said they had contributed to him. Mr. Yin has reported raising $27,648 from 299 people so far. Eighty percent of those he reported as donors were listed as cash contributors.
In a brief interview after his fund-raiser concluded, Mr. Yin declined to discuss how the names and signatures of so many fake donors had made their way into his disclosure reports. He said he had no paid fund-raisers working for his campaign.
“There’s no more information from me,” he said in English.
Yet in a statement released to Chinese language media outlets the previous day, Mr. Yin’s campaign sought to distance him from fund-raising efforts, calling him a “complete outsider in terms of fund-raising for his campaign.”
“Mr. Yin’s campaign office, with unwavering confidence, asserts that they have adhered to all the necessary procedures to meet matching funds requirements,” the statement said.
It was a stark contrast to what Mr. Yin told The Times previously. In a telephone interview on June 3, Mr. Yin said, “I’m the treasurer, I know everything.” He also insisted he had raised money directly from donors.
Records show Mr. Yin has already spent over $105,000 on the race. About $10,000 went to pay off credit card bills with no description of what he had bought, despite rules requiring that such expenses be itemized.
JT Group, a robotics and real estate investment company run by Terence Park, a consultant to Mr. Yin’s campaign, received $20,000 from the candidate, making the firm the largest single recipient of campaign funds. Mr. Park said he ended his relationship with Mr. Yin after reading the Times article, saying he was “distressed” about the allegations and “disappointed” in Mr. Yin.
In an interview, he said he had found it curious that Mr. Yin never met with him at his campaign headquarters, always insisting that they meet at a Starbucks near his house instead.
“I’ve never met any of his campaign staff or anyone,” Mr. Park said. “Not even a single one.”
The address of the campaign headquarters listed on Mr. Yin’s website houses an arcade-game parlor in Queens; Mr. Yin told The Times that the listing was an error and that he no longer had a campaign office.
He noted last week that he was in the market for something else: a lawyer.
Xintian Wang contributed reporting, and Susan C. Beachy and Jack Begg contributed research.