Former Auditor Employees Aware Of Edmondson's Ties To McMahan, Employment Of Family Member

Two former employees of the state auditor & inspector's office in Tulsa who allege state laws were broken by state employees on behalf of Jeff McMahan in his 2002 campaign apparently did not take their complaints to Attorney General Drew Edmondson because they were aware of Edmondson's close ties to McMahan and McMahan's hiring of Edmondson's niece on his staff, The McCarville Report Online has been told.

The women, Dana Webb and Lisa Long, have alleged the Tulsa auditor's office became an adjunct campaign headquarters for McMahan once he won the Democratic nomination in 2002 and faced Republican Gary Jones. They say state property was misused for campaign purposes and that donations for McMahan were solicited and collected on state property in violation of state law.

With their allegations just now seeing the light of day, some have asked why they waited so long and why now, a month before this year's election featuring a rematch of the McMahan-Jones race of 2002, are they just making their 4-year-old allegations public. In a Saturday morning program on Oklahoma City radio station KTOK, station Capitol Correspondent Bill Bateman asked why the women hadn't taken their complaints to Edmondson.

"They didn't trust him," a source said Monday. The source said the women were leery of Edmondson because he had supported McMahan and they had been told McMahan had hired a member of Edmondson's family on his staff; the women confirmed that. In addition, they say they knew Edmondson and McMahan were "hunting buddies." Long said today, "Sure we knew all about that."

The family member is identified as Erin Edmondson, a niece who is described as a skilled computer expert on McMahan's staff. Insiders claim that Edmondson helped McMahan's sister, Joni Kidney, find a job in state government in the Department of Agriculture. Kidney is now listed as the contact for the Department of Central Services' Property Distribution Division.

A Democratic Party source, asked about the Edmondson-McMahan connection early today, confirmed that Erin Edmondson works for McMahan, and has since shortly after McMahan's took office in January 2003. He defended Edmondson and added that if the women had gone to Edmondson with their allegations, he probably would have sent them somewhere else to recuse himself from an investigation given his family tie to McMahan and their close association. The source said the Ethics Commission probably would have been the entity Edmondson would have recommended.

The McMahan controversy is a hot topic on the Democratic forum, www.demookie.com, where some posters are critical of the two former employees; as usual, some of the posters don't have a clue what they're writing about and don't seem inclined to find out.

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