The Rhode Island Progressive Democrats on Tuesday accused House Majority Leader John DeSimone (D-Providence) of violating state ethics regulations by not disclosing income and previous state and city past-due taxes.
DeSimone responded by disputing part of the accusation and by saying he does not think the tax details constitute an ethics violation.
“I believe it’s just a political frivolous document that they filed so that they could get some type of publicity, right before, one day before the [ethics] deadline,” DeSimone said.
The Progressive Democrats — who are supporting DeSimone’s Democratic primary opponent, Marcia Ranglin-Vassell — said they’ve filed their complaint against DeSimone with the state Ethics Commission.
The group pointed to repeated past notices, over multiple years, of tax sales of DeSimone’s Ralston Street home and his Smith Street law office, due to overdue taxes. As a result, the Progressive Democrats said, “DeSimone has regularly been thousands of dollars in debt to the City of Providence — a fact that he was legally required to report in his annual financial disclosure statements to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, which calls for disclosure of all debts in excess of $1,000 ‘to any person, business entity, financial institution or other organization’ beyond a few specific categories.”
DeSimone said he did not believe that real estate taxes had to be disclosed as part of state ethics filings.
“My taxes are all current and paid, and I paid my taxes every year,” he said. “I may have paid them late. but I always pay them every year. So when I filled out my forms, there was no unusual or abnormal indebtedness for real estate taxes that anyone else had. I didn’t feel as though that was required to be listed.”
In the case of a 2012 state tax lien on his properties for outstanding taxes, DeSimone said he had forgotten about that while making his ethics filing. But he said he did not think it needed to be listed.
“When you look at that [lien], it was filed, like, February 22 and it was discharged March 8,” he said. “You know, I’m a small businessman. I have children in college. you know, you make certain budgeting decisions and I paid that one late, but it got paid right away, and that was it. I didn’t think there was any unusual indebtedness.”
The Progressive Democrats also said DeSimone served as “the paid registered agent” for United Providence, an education group that “received state legislative grants worth $100,000 in each year in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and was scheduled to receive another grant in 2016, before the legislature realized the organization was defunct.”
DeSimone said, “I was never paid in any way by United Providence.”
DeSimone became majority leader, the number two position in the House of Representatives, when Nicholas Mattiello won the fight to become speaker after Gordon Fox’s resignation in 2014. DeSimone has served in the House since first winning election in 1992.
