Charity chief accused of fraud also major donor to Texas GOP figures

By Jennifer Peebles | Monday, October 20th, 2008

Prominent El Paso businessman Robert E. Jones had turned a struggling charity hiring people with disabilities into a major defense contractor doing nearly a billion dollars’ worth of business with the Pentagon –- and his arrest last week on fraud charges has been big news across Texas.

But what’s gotten less attention is the fact that Jones is a big-bucks political donor here, mainly to Republican candidates and causes.

Jones, whose National Center for the Employment of the Disabled turned out to not employ that many folks with disabilities, has given $126,000 to Republican candidates for state legislature and statewide offices since 2000, according to a Texas Watchdog analysis of campaign finance data from the state Ethics Commission.

That figure includes $100,000 given to Gov. Rick Perry alone –- four checks, each worth $25,000, written in 2003, 2004 and 2005 –- and $22,500 to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

Press officers did not immediately return calls for comment left at Perry and Dewhurst’s offices this morning.

Jones also gave $2,000 to Victor Carrillo, the Republican head of the state Railroad Commission, and $1,500 to GOP state Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Texas Dems got some cash from Jones, too — $24,250 since 2000, according to the Ethics Commission. He gave $10,000 to former state Comptroller John Sharp’s failed 2002 bid for lieutenant governor, and $6,000 to state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso.

Jones’ records of contributions note a handful of different employers: For some, he is listed as head of the National Center for the Employment of the Disabled. For others, he is listed as being employed by JFT Management, the firm that The Oregonian newspaper said allowed Jones to rake in millions from the charity. Still other contributions list him as working for Sahara Sportswear, which The Oregonian’s investigation alleged was purchased by the charity in 1998.

More recently renamed ReadyOne Industries, the charity is the third-largest federal contractor –- in terms of contract value –- in Texas’ 16th Congressional District, according to data from the FedSpending.org database site run by the watchdog group OMB Watch. It had contracts to make chemical-warfare protection suits for American servicemen and -women.

With $83.6 million in contracts for fiscal year 2007, ReadyOne was behind only Austin-based Hensel Phelps Construction, which has been working on a major expansion at Fort Bliss, and Refinery Holding Co., now Western Refining, which sells fuel to the military.

Jones’ political giving on the federal level has been more evenly divided between the two major parties: $14,500 to Republicans and $10,500 to Democrats since 1999, according to records from the Federal Election Commission. (Why so much on the state level and so little on the federal level? Federal law limits individual contributions to $2,300 per election. Texas has no limits on contributions to statewide or legislative candidates.)

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has received $5,000 from Jones, records show, and U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, received $4,000.

Robert E. Jones’ political giving

A summary by Texas Watchdog of political giving by the former head of the National Center for Employment of the Disabled, from records from the Texas Ethics Commission and the Federal Election Commission. State records online go back as far as 2000, while federal records online go back to 1999.

(Picture by flickr user Brett L, used via the Creative Commons license.)
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