A California city councilman was served a hefty fine for committing a series of violations that stemmed from his decision to hire a 14-year-old to manage his campaign’s finances and give the child a shoebox filled with $43,000 in cash.
Anthony Phan, a Democrat, was 22 when he won his seat on the Milpitas City Council in 2016, making him one of the youngest individuals to ever be elected to public office in the United States at the time. During that campaign, Phan hired his 14-year-old cousin to serve as his campaign treasurer and, at one point, gave the child a Nike shoebox filled with $43,000 in cash and directed him to deposit the funds in the bank.
But Phan’s cousin only deposited $5,000 because his mother, also Phan’s aunt, told him “not to deposit such a large amount of cash into the committee bank account.”
Phan’s aunt held the remaining $38,000 for safekeeping, Mercury News reported.
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Phan said he didn’t learn that his aunt had held on to the funds until after he won his election in 2016. He reported to the California Fair Political Practices Commission that his campaign had received a loan of $43,000, which raised red flags for the state watchdog, as authorities could only locate the $5,000 deposit.
The FPPC ultimately fined Phan $15,000 in May for receiving and spending prohibited funds connected to the shoebox filled with cash.
Phan, who won reelection to the Milpitas City Council in 2020 and is now running for mayor of the city, said he was relieved the matter was resolved.
“This case has been going on for too long,” Phan said, according to Mercury News. “Its been exhausting for me, for my mental health, for my family — over mistakes that were made when I was 22 and fresh out of college.”
Phan, who is now 28, said the fine was “fair” and “reasonable.”
He explained that he hired his 14-year-old cousin to manage his campaign’s finances in 2016 because he wanted to give him “valuable experience.”
“I would not do that again,” he said, “putting such an inexperienced person in a capacity like that.”
Phan said voters in the mayoral election should judge him based on his record as a city councilman for the past six years.
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“I’ve grown a lot,” Phan said. “And I’ve done a lot for the city. I think [voters] are going to be focusing on the qualifications and what I’ve done for the city … not some campaign mistakes I made a very long time ago.”
