Kie Westby Gets Attention With $285k Payment to Campaign Manager.

Republican candidate for attorney general Kie Westby may wish he had remained obscure. Party leaders are fuming that after helping the Thomaston lawyer qualify for public campaign funds this month, Westby handed $285,000 to campaign manager Ronald Wilcox. The expenditure is likely to prompt questions in other circles after Westby takes a thumping Tuesday from incumbent Democrat George Jepsen.

Westby’s October 30th filing includes the hefty payment to Wilcox. His previous filing does not include it as an expense incurred not paid. Wilcox appears to have been receiving $1,000 a month from Westby as a consultant until the public financing bonanza arrived in October. That suggests Wilcox was making nearly $100,000 a month in August, September and October, a hefty boost from his previous compensation. The deal is likely to attract the attention of the state’s election enforcement agency. Payments of public funds by a campaign are expected to have some relationship to the work performed.