The B.C. Elections Office is reviewing fresh allegations that former West Vancouver police chief and Vancouver-Fraserview MLA Kash Heed overspent his allowable campaign budget by far more than he previously admitted to in court.
The move came this week after Leonard Krog, the NDPs critic for Attorney General, and Gabriel Yu, the NDP candidate who ran against Heed, called on the chief electoral officer to investigate how much Heed spent during the 2009 election campaign.
On Oct. 28, Heeds former campaign manager Barinder Sall pleaded guilty to charges of campaign overspending and misleading election investigators.
Sall was fined $15,000 and put on a years probation by Judge Joseph Galati of the Vancouver provincial court.
One of Heeds campaign supporters, Dinesh Khanna, also pleaded guilty to three election act charges. He was fined $3,000 and put on three months probation.
In September, Heed was fined $11,000 for violating the Elections Act in overspending by $5,500.
Part of the additional cost that wasn't declared came from pamphlets that were illegally distributed under the direction of Heed's campaign team in the final days of the election.
Heed argued in court that he acted in good faith, relying heavily on his campaign staff, including Sall, to file paperwork and accounting properly.
But following his own sentencing on Friday, Sall gave at least two media interviews stating that he thought the amount of campaign overspending was actually closer to $40,000, but that he had destroyed the evidence.
Sall added he didnt act alone in any of the political dirty tricks.
Krog fired off a letter to the chief electoral officer on Monday, saying, This additional disclosure of significant alleged overspending by Mr. Heeds campaign manager must also be dealt with.
A special prosecutor cleared Heed of criminal wrongdoing earlier this year stating there was no evidence Heed knew or could have known about what campaign staff were up to.
But Krog said Salls latest statements call that into question and need to be examined.
Heed issued a statement Monday saying the issue has already been thoroughly examined by a forensic audit. The matter is over and it is time to move forward, he said in the statement. The prior decision by the special prosecutor and the court re-affirmed my integrity and I will not be commenting further.
Heed was chief constable of the West Vancouver Police Department before resigning in March 2009 to enter provincial politics.
Material released in January from an RCMP search warrant application pointed to Heed's active courting of a political run during his tenure as police chief as well as his close relationship with Sall, who worked for Heed on some police projects and was involved in opening doors for Heed to enter the political arena.
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