In a posting entitled “Why’s it so hard for Hoa Van Tran to report expenses?” on TheLiberalOC.com, Chris Prevatt exposed the vast extent of expenses by the Hoa Van Tran campaign that were incurred and paid during the period covered by the first disclosure, but were not reported by the campaign.
Expenses uncovered by Prevatt include some obvious items as well as some items revealed by insiders to Prevatt, in his self-styled “TheLiberalOC.com Bulldog Investigation.”
You can access the PDF of Hoa’s financial report here. 
The reporting period was for January 1, 2008 through March 17, 2008. That means any contribution, loan and expenditures incurred during that period (including unpaid bills) must be reported on that form.
Now go to page 11 of that report. That section is “Schedule E – Payments Made.” The report only shows 3 payments made through March 17: $308.16 to AT&T, $750 to BC Telecommunication, both for office expenses, and $808.13 to Le’s Printing for campaign literature.
There are some payments that we just know the campaign made before March 17 but were not reported. First and most obvious of all are the filing fees. The deadline for filing was March 7, and Hoa Van Tran did file, so obviously the campaign did pay the filing fees. Whether they were drawn on the campaign’s checking account or drawn on someone else’s account, they must be disclosed.
They weren’t. And Prevatt duly noted that: Candidate Filing Fee, $1,430.42; Candidate Statement Fee, $5,965.
Prevatt also uncovered other expenses paid from the campaign bank account at First Vietnamese American Bank, but were not reported: “salary payment to one campaign staffer, $500; reimbursement to a campaign staffer for purchase of office supplies, $51.70.” The number on these checks, minus the reported payments, indicate that there were ten other payments on the same checking account that were not reported.
Prevatt also related an account by a Hoa Van Tran campaign insider how Hoa went to Costco on or about March 12 (that is, during the reporting period) to buy $5,000 worth of computers, couldn’t pay by campaign check, so went back to arrange for another check, credit card, or money order to pay Costco.
And then there were staff wages and salaries, including those of campaign manager Edgardo Reynoso who began work on March 1. And gas reimbursement for the candidate and staff, paid in cash. And lots of other stuff uncovered by Prevatt.
Read full details here.
