INVESTIGATION: State Rep Candidate Has Arrest Record

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Friday, October 12, 2012

Stephen Beale, GoLocalProv News Contributor

A Democratic state rep candidate is facing new questions stemming from a past arrest on a larceny charge and citations of illegal dumping that could undermine his efforts to define himself as a small business advocate.

Steven Campo, a Democrat, is basing his candidacy for the District 31 seat in the General Assembly on his background as an owner of a landscaping business headquartered in North Kingstown. But it in his role as a businessman that Campo found himself in a dispute with another local business that ultimately led to a larceny charge and no contest plea in 1997.

 ‘Just simply a bad apple’

In March 1996, Campo was charged with failure to pay for work done on one of his tractors at Interstate Diesel, a local mechanic’s shop. According to a police report on the incident obtained by GoLocalProv, Campo snatched four copies of the customer service ticket from the manager’s desk and then left. Without any legal records of the work, the shop had no right to demand payment or hold onto his tractor until it received payment, the police report indicates. (See below excerpts.) 

Campo not only maintains his innocence in the matter, but in an interview yesterday he suggested that he himself was the victim of unscrupulous business practices, saying that it was the owner of the mechanic shop who was the real “thief” and “bandit.”

But it was Campo that police charged with larceny, which is theft for $500 and less. Nearly a year after his arrest on the charge, court records show that Campo entered a no contest plea and made a payment. In an interview yesterday, Campo said the judge in the case dismissed it after he agreed to pay $400 to the business. He did not recall any further details of how the court proceedings ended, including the no contest plea.

Donald Bannister, owner of Interstate Diesel, told GoLocalProv that the $400 did not cover all of his losses. He said Campo had cost him a few thousand dollars in unpaid work. “He’s just simply a bad apple,” Bannister said in an interview. “He just thinks he can bully everybody around and get his way.”

Mark Zaccaria, current state GOP chair and former North Kingstown party chair, said the incident calls into question Campo’s character. “I would argue that that’s not the kind of person that the people of District 31 want to have representing them,” Zaccaria said.

North Kingstown voters have chosen Campo to represent them at least once, however, as a member of the town council from 2006 to 2008. But the larceny arrest was never discussed or even made public during that campaign, according to Zaccaria, who unsuccessfully ran against Campo for the seat. Campo himself also ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2010. He did not recall the larceny arrest being raised as a campaign issue then either.

The incumbent rep for District 31, Doreen Costa, a Republican, said Campo’s arrest record is something voters from both parties should consider when making their decision who to support in November.

“This shows a huge character flaw in Mr. Campo,” Costa said. “Mr. Campo went into this gentleman’s office and robbed the paperwork off his desk with Mr. Campo’s signature on it. He tried to hide the fact they he gave the man permission to deliver his services. He was arrested and charged with larceny. This is not the type of person I would want representing me.”

‘Bandit’ business owner

But Campo says he never did anything wrong and disputes the police report’s account of events—even though Bannister’s allegations of larceny are backed up by three witness statements, including one Interstate Diesel employee who says he observed Campo seize the customer service tickets.

It all started, according to Campo, when he noticed smoke coming from the engine areas of one his tractors which he uses for his business, Rhode Island Green Lawn Care, which he has owned and run for more than two decades. Campo said he called Interstate Diesel, asking for a mechanic to drop by and manually turn the engine—that way, Campo said, he would know if the engine had seized up. He estimates that the work should have cost just $50.

Once on the scene, the mechanic told him that he would feel more comfortable doing the work at the shop and Campo consented to having the tractor towed there, Campo recalled. When he spoke with the shop by phone the next day, he was told that the entire engine would need to be replaced—something he was not convinced was necessary and that he certainly had not authorized, Campo said. He immediately rushed to the store. When he got there, the engine had already been taken out of the tractor and he was handed a bill for $800, Campo said.

“This guy is a bandit. He is a thief. He is a bad businessman. What he did was not conscionable,” Campo said. “If I ran my business like this I would have never been as successful as I am.”

Asked to respond to Campo’s account of events late yesterday, Bannister simply said it was “not true.” He said his shop would not have done the work if Campo “didn’t say so.”

Campo said he offered to meet Bannister halfway—at $400—and left with the invoice in hand, promising that he would mail or return with a check in person. For Campo, that’s where the story should have ended.

Instead, he said he was surprised when a police officer showed up at his office and he was later informed that he was being charged with larceny. He said the issue dragged through about half a dozen court appearances that reached resolution only when he brought in his brother Paul Campo, to be his attorney. (Paul Campo was unavailable for comment.)

“I’m not a criminal,” Campo concluded.

Run in with town authorities

However, the larceny arrest is not the only legal trouble Campo has had in North Kingstown. More recently, in 2004, he received three citations for violations of town ordinances, police records show. The citations were for having rubbish and debris on a neighbor’s property, illegal dumping, and a violation of the town’s ordinance on solid waste facilities.

Campo pointed to the citations as an example of the anti-business mentality in the town, saying the town was essentially leveling “criminal charges” at him for “running a business.” In this instance, Campo had better luck in court: a district court judge dismissed all three charges.

But Zaccaria said Campo has demonstrated a pattern of “cutting corners, anytime, any way.”

Campo, in turn, accused Republicans of trying to discredit him and ruin the reputation of an “innocent man”—an indicator, he added, that the race between him and Costa must be close. He said such “frivolous” attacks are the reasons people are reluctant to run for office and in his race are an unfortunate distraction from what should be the main focus: his plans to use his business experience to help other small business owners when he is in the General Assembly.

Lawmakers in trouble with the law

If elected, Campo would join a small but growing club of state lawmakers who have had legal troubles of one kind or another. The past year in particular has been marked by several high-profile cases.

Last year, news reports revealed that Rep Dan Gordon, R-Portsmouth, faced multiple charges in Massachusetts over many years, including two assault and battery charges, assault with intent to murder, and larceny. Former House Minority Leader Bob Watson, R-East Greenwich, last year was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, as was Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio earlier this year. Another lawmaker, John Carnevale, D-Providence, was charged with sexual assault in late 2011.

The charges have had a varying impact on the political fortunes of those lawmakers.

Watson not only lost his leadership post, but he also declined to run for re-election. Ruggerio, however, kept his post while a fellow state Senator, Frank Ciccone, D-Providence, lost his position as a committee chairman over remarks he made to law enforcement officers during the arrest of his colleague. As for Carnevale, his case was expected to be dismissed after his accuser died of natural causes. Gordon won't be returning to the Statehouse either, after he did not obtain the necessary 50 signatures from his new district to appear on the ballot. (He did, however, submit 50 signatures from his old district, according to the local board of canvassers.)

It’s unclear just how much of an effect an arrest record, especially one going back a number of years, will have on public opinion. “Taken alone, I don’t think that a record that is as old as that one is likely to influence voters that much,” said Rhode Island College political scientist Victor Profughi.

However, he said the larceny charge could become more significant in voters’ minds if it’s connected to a pattern of behavior.

At least one local voter says his decision about whom to support will be affected by the incident.

“He … won’t have my vote, that’s for sure,” Bannister said.

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North Kingstown Police Report 

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