Posted on 06/20/2013 7:10:44 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
DNC: Nearly $500,000 of equipment was lost or stolen in Charlotte
To stage last year’s Democratic National Convention, the local host committee raised millions of dollars, much of it for computers, phones and other communication devices.
Now it appears a sizable amount of that equipment was lost, stolen – or perhaps kept by the staffers it had been assigned to.
The Democratic National Convention Committee said it recently sent the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department a spreadsheet detailing $496,000 worth of missing equipment. CMPD created an incident report in May.
Among the missing items: MacBook Pro laptops, iPads, iPod Nanos, computer printers, and BlackBerrys.
“It’s commonplace for stuff to go missing,” said Joseph Sandler, a Washington, D.C., attorney handling media calls about the issue for the DNC host committee. “This is very typical, even though we have an inventory system.”
Sandler said he thought the Charlotte losses were higher than usual because of planners prepping two sites for the three-day convention: Time Warner Cable Arena and Bank of America Stadium. President Barack Obama was supposed to deliver his acceptance speech at the football stadium, but the threat of thunderstorms moved the last night of the DNC back to the arena.
Sandler said some of the items may have been inadvertently kept by DNC staffers who had used the equipment for months before the convention. But he said he believes some of the equipment was stolen by people not involved with the convention.
“Some of it may have been stolen, but we don’t know exactly what happened,” he said.
The spreadsheet given to police lists $3.9 million in equipment, with most of it accounted for.
For example, the document says the DNCC had 600 BlackBerry Bold 990s. It shows 383 were returned and 217 are missing. Amount of the losses: $54,250.
A total of 841 pieces of equipment are missing, according to the DNCC.
In its police report, CMPD lists most of the equipment, including the BlackBerrys, as “lost” rather than “stolen.”
CMPD couldn’t be reached for comment.
Sandler said he does not think the Charlotte police will be able to find much of the equipment.
“Probably not,” he said. “Except to the extent if there were a significant number of things stolen and there is a lead they can pursue.”
The local host committee for the DNC was tasked with raising roughly $36 million to stage the convention, but the fundraising efforts fell short.
In May, Duke Energy announced that it would absorb the $10 million line of credit it gave to the host committee. Because the company could claim the loss as a business expense, its shareholders would only cover $6 million of the loan.
Dan Murrey, who chaired the host committee, said his employees returned most of the items they were using.
“On my team, we got almost every piece back,” he said. “But I don’t know if that was clear on the (Democratic National Convention Committee) side.”
He said that, in the past, technology companies had not asked for many items to be returned after conventions.
“But this time they did,” Murray said.
He said filing the police report with CMPD was a necessary step toward possibly filing an insurance claim for the items.
He said that on the last night of the convention, a number of pieces of equipment vanished, suggesting they were deliberately stolen.
“But it wasn’t like someone backed up a tractor-trailer and loaded up a bunch of stuff,” he said.
The party of “redistribution”.
Democrats are really good at stealing....generations of practice.
Insurance fraud.
I would expect nothing less from those who believe they are entitled to what belongs to others.
"Let them touch those things for once."
After (wink wink) losing the stuff - the DNC is filing a complaint so they can get a tax break ... and who knows, maybe hit up the folks who insured them?
It’s sooooooooooooooooo Chicago...
LOL @ inadvertently kept.
They wuz entitlted to them free laptops and ipads weren’t they?
Wouldn’t surprise me if our White House has been looted of it’s historic contents by now.
Sayyyyyy WHUT?
Sounds like Washington.
Creative campaign financing.
I am guessing that the DNCs insurer is someone like Progressive that is far Left politically.
The insurance company tells the DNC to pad their insurance claim and that the insurer will not dispute the claim.
By doing this the DNC avoids paying taxes on the contribution and the insurer avoids gift taxes and can write of the contribution as a business loss.
The FREE STUFF ARMY practices what they preach.
To liberals what’s theirs is theirs, and what’s yours is theirs.
I remember an earlier article showing how these lost items were being valued way, way, way above their value. In other words these people are crooks!
Souvenir collectors
Haha-——=>That’s what I’d tell the D.N.C. when it came to the Mecklenburg Sherriff’s Dept.
Happens at every Tea Party gathering too.
Did the IRS ask for receipts?
TT
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