Another political scandal brewing in San Diego

[Joanie Baloney]

There must be something in the water here. We no sooner put the Bob Filner embarrassment in the rear-view mirror when this story broke yesterday:

SAN DIEGO (CNS/CBS 8) - A social media campaign business is accused of conspiring with a former San Diego police detective and others to funnel more than $500,000 of illegal foreign money into San Diego municipal and federal campaigns, primarily in 2012 and last year, was arraigned in federal court today.
Ravneet Singh, 41, the proprietor of Washington, D.C.-based ElectionMall Inc., was taken into custody Friday by FBI agents serving an arrest warrant. ElectionMall Inc. is also charged as a defendant in the case.

"For criminal cases there's nothing more important to us than public corruption investigations," said FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth. Court records show Singh considered himself a "campaign guru," and was the president, CEO and founder of ElectionMall, a company that provided social media services and other campaign and election products to political candidates throughout the world.

Former San Diego Police Department Detective Ernesto Encinas, the owner of a San Diego-based private security and consulting business, oversaw the protection detail of a person identified in the complaint only as "the Foreign National." Between 2011 and 2013, Singh and Encinas allegedly helped the foreign national illegally donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to a series of candidates for elected office, including during the 2012 San Diego mayoral election, a 2012 congressional campaign and the 2013 San Diego special mayoral election -- up to December 2013.

The FBI did not name who the candidates were in the allegations.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/21/feds-illegal-money-funneled-to-san-diego/

http://www.utsandiego.com/documents/2014/jan/21/complaint-against-ravneet-singh/

http://www.cbs8.com/story/24514229/fbi-illegal-funds-funneled-to-local-candidates-in-san-diego