Gore, campaign aide for Mayor Gray, admits to paying off other D.C. candidates

In an investigation that unveiled underhanded strategies used to get Vincent Gray elected mayor of Washington, D.C., a former Gray campaign aide pleaded guilty on Tuesday to funneling campaign funds to another mayoral candidate and shredding records of the transactions. Thomas Gore admitted in U.S. District Court that he converted excessive or unattributed cash contributions to Gray’s 2010 campaign into money orders that were then filled out by another party and given to Sulaimon Brown, a minor candidate.

The intentions of the payments were to keep Brown in the race so that he could continue issuing negative comments about then-mayor Adrian Fenty as he sought re-election, Gore admitted. Gore, 56, a longtime friend of Gray’s and acting treasurer for the campaign, also admitted he lied to the FBI about having shredded a spiral notebook in which he kept records of the payments to Brown. In addition, Gore revealed that he was caught in the lie when confronted with wiretap evidence. He pleaded guilty to a felony obstruction-of-justice charge for the attempted cover-up and three misdemeanors of making a contribution in the name of another person. Federal sentencing guidelines require Gore to receive 12 to 18 months in prison, however, due to the ongoing investigation, no sentencing date has been set.