Clinton-Gore fund-raiser to plead guilty to campaign finance charges

June 21, 2000
Web posted at: 5:22 PM EDT (2122 GMT)

By Terry Friedan/CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Thai businesswoman who became an active fund-raiser for the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign has agreed to plead guilty to campaign finance law violations and will cooperate with prosecutors, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Pauline Kanchanalak will appear in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Friday and plead guilty to conspiracy to give false statements to the Federal Election Commission from 1992 to 1996.

Documents outlining the plea agreement were filed in court Wednesday. Kanchanalak received more than $690,000 in money from overseas sources to be contributed to the Democratic National Committee and five state Democratic parties.

More than $457,000 of the illegal contributions were provided in connection with a White House "coffee" meeting attended by President Bill Clinton on June 18, 1996.

According to the documents, Kanchanalak and her co-conspirators believed the contributions would help develop business opportunities for her company, Ban Chang International, or BCI, a Cayman Islands corporation.

Kanchanalak acknowledges conspiring to hide the out-of-country source of the contributions. She faces up to six years in prison and a fine of $350,000.

Her sister-in-law Duangnet (Georgie) Kronenberg also agreed to plead guilty to a single count of making an illegal corporate contribution of $10,000.

Kronenberg faces a maximum of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Both Kanchanalak and Kronenberg were indicted by the Justice Department's Campaign Finance Task Force in July 1998.

In late 1998 and early 1999, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman dismissed several counts against them. However, an appeals court reversed the rulings, reinstated the charges, and set a trial date of Nov. 13, 2000.

The Justice Department says the Kanchanalak and Kronenberg convictions will be the 24th and 25th prosecutions by the Justice Department task force.

The team of prosecutors has conducted an investigation that continues to be sharply criticized by many leading Republican lawmakers, who insist Attorney General Janet Reno instead should have appointed an independent counsel to lead the campaign funds investigation.