L’Italien Says She Was Source Of $70,000 In Campaign Loans

ANDOVER, MA -- The campaign of State Sen. Barbara L'Italien (D-Andover) says she did not violate campaign finance laws when she loaned the campaign $70,000. Because L'Italien wrote checks for $50,000 and $20,000 from a joint checking account she held with her mother after her mother died last April, she was not in violation of a rule capping loans from relatives at $2,700 per election cycle.

Questions about the account arose after she failed to disclose it on a Federal Election Commission form. L'Italien is one of ten Democrat running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Nikki Tsonga (D-Lowell) in the Third Congressional District. L'Italien told the Boston Globe, which first reported this story, she and her mother had shared the account for more than 20 years before her mother died in April 2017. L'Italien used the account to pay for care for her mother, who lived in L'Italien's Andover home.

For more on this story, see the Boston Globe. Subscribe to Andover Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Patch file photo.